Is an educated Member of Parliament necessary?

Is an educated MP important?

By Harish Bijoor


What is the role of the educated man in politics?

The question is thrown up all the time. Particularly in the urban context of our political lives. Remember, in the rural context education means something else altogether.

Urban folk love to talk the language of education. Formal education. As of all us really know, there is formal education in the format laid out for most of us in India by Lord Macaulay decades ago under the tutelage of the British. And then there is informal education by which norm every one of us in urban or rural area alike is fully educated. The older we get, the more rustic and the more diverse our sets of experiences, the more educated we are!

The question then is: Do educated leaders make a difference? Are educated leaders better for India? Are educated leaders less corrupt than un-educated ones? Are educated leaders more focused on public good than un-educated leaders?

A quest for the answers will need to take us through a quick journey of politics in India over the last seven decades.

I guess we started with a healthy mix of the educated. It is educated leaders who were pursuing reasonably lucrative professions, such as Barristers, Advocates, Doctors and Educationists who led us on in our thinking process that dominated the Freedom struggle. Education played a big part then. Opinion leadership mattered and those that led the way were intellectuals who were educated. Educated people who commanded a great deal of respect. And this respect came from the fact that not only were they educated, but the fact that they threw to the winds their respective lucrative professions to join the realm of public service and the cause of nationalism at large with a passion. This drew big respect from the masses at large.

As the decades went by, and as India settled into a democracy that was getting to be truly representative of its masses, as mandated by the Constitution of India(framed by these very educated people who helped steer the nation to freedom), education became but a non-important qualification to own in order to occupy the chair of public representation. And rightly so.

Just imagine that you represent a constituency that is totally illiterate in the formal sense, totally impoverished and totally deprived. Let’s say in Bihar. The true-blue representation of this consistency is best done by a person who can emote the local mood, mind, tone and tenor. True-blue representation meant education of the formal kind was not important at all. In many ways, the representative would be a person who could capture the imagination and trust of the electorate at large. A demagogue would do. A person who really emoted with issues at the ground level would be the best person to have as a Member of Parliament representing the area.

Our entire system of seat reservations and indeed every covenant of our affirmative action processes at play in India ensured this got deepened into the polity at play.

As the decades crawled by, we have had a wide spectrum-set of people occupying the hallowed position of a Member of Parliament, a Member of the Legislative Assembly or the Council of a State. And these cascade down to every level of local self governance we have in place.

The current debate is really an urban one. It is all about the empowered urban person saying that education of the formal kind instills a sense of right and wrong. It is the urban clamor that says that an educated person is more concerned about social work. And of course the end argument that an educated person is less corrupt than a person without the flavor of a formal education.

I do believe all of this is wrong. The most corrupt of our politicians are possibly the most educated. Those that do precious little for the electorate have also been the most educated, at times. In many ways, education really does not matter.

What matters is the ability to emote with an electorate. An ability to forcefully represent. An ability to be honest. An ability to be inclusive. An ability to stand by a cause. An ability to be un-relenting in the pursuit of social good.

If all of this is available in an un-educated (of the formal kind) man or woman, so be it. And if all of this is not available as part of the trait profile of the educated, so be it.

Education is an ethos. Those without a formal exposure to education have it at times. And those who have had a formal education have it not, at times.

Harish Bijoor is a Brand and Political strategy specialist.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Mobile: +91 98440 83491