Education is to Literacy is what Venus is to Mars

There’s been a lot of air around Gurmehar Kaur, her gimmick and an easy exploitation of social media by all the celebrities who thought they know it better. While there have emerged a lot of her supporters, there have also shown up a lot more opponents of the thought put forward by this student of LSR. The supporters have been calling names to the opponents, trying to mark their presence in the froth thus generated and the opponents have been trying to come up with equally wittier retorts to stage their presence. Meanwhile, the point that should have been the focus of the debate was lost somewhere in the echo.

Celebrities like Virender Sehwag, Kiran Rijiju and Randeep Hooda have been speaking against her stand and have somewhere made sensible excuses to come out clean. In an attempt to counter them and, also, to give his byte to the media to count in, the famous lyricist Javed Akhtar has made a comment which nowhere grants him a certificate for having superlative intelligence.

 By directly commenting on one’s literacy level, he seems to be offending several ‘educated’ folks out there who never saw the face of a school. There is a thin line of difference between education and literacy and both of them have zilch to do with what degrees one decides to add to his name.

There might be several people who are mannered, talk sense, earn well and are doing their bit in making their family, community, society and country proud. However, there have also been several such highly qualified, literate folks who have been named amongst the most notorious criminals ever. After all, it all boils down to one’s sense of judgment or how he reacts to things or situations facing him. Javed could well have highlighted their ignorance if at all he was to express his support for Gurmehar and controvert the league of opponents. However, his choice of word has, in a way, demeaned everyone who’s ever done great in their field of interest, which does not necessarily have anything to do with the academics.

Talk about these people, for instance. Folks like Virender Sehwag or Yogeshwar Dutt need not prove their level of commitment to their work or their caliber, for that matter, to anyone. Their mettle has already created tremendous noise throughout the world in their shinier days. Using one’s qualifications, education or family background as an evidence to prove oneself right is not only immature but also stupid. He could just have made his point sensible enough to get him limelight while expressing his support, but it surely would have been a way tougher and brainier task, no?