The manner in which the nation Hillary Clinton even shared a platform which suggests a government-run chooses to bestow awards and honours with him on the subject last year, and institution, perhaps modelled on the upon its citizens is a useful way to this could not have happened without Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).3 understand the priorities of the State at some consultation with the Indian state. any given moment. The Padma Bhushan, Even if the Padma Bhushan has not The film alternates between for instance, is a coveted award and been awarded to Aamir Khan for his the present and the past. Rancho a comparative list of awardees in the “efforts in education”, there is still the comes from a wealthy business family earlier decades and today reveals that likelihood that they have contributed to it. in Shimla and was the non-conformist, wherein the earlier period people were while the other two were inspired by rewarded for working in fields where 3 Idiots has been eulogised in him. Another classmate was Chatur material success might be elusive, the the media as an “assault on our apathetic Ramalingam – less inventive but openly State today rewards the wealthy (in education system”.1 Rajkumar Hirani’s ambitious – and the three friends often “trade and industry”) much more readily Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), also in clashed with him. At the conclusion of even if it has to accommodate them the public eye for bringing Gandhian their course, Chatur openly challenged in some other way – perhaps “social values back into focus was screened them on the success of their future service” when the wealthy indulge in at the United Nations and its message careers. When Farhan and Raju return to charity. An explanation is that pursuing apparently heartened the prime minister.2 their alma mater after 10 years Chatur wealth has become a legitimate and even Both Hirani and Aamir Khan are, therefore, joins them, fresh from the US and full noble pursuit today with “trickle down” involved in entertainment considered of his achievements and possessions. economics being most favoured as the “meaningful” by the State. This essay He is now concluding a business answer to the problem of inequity. proceeds from the proposition that since arrangement with a great inventor named the State has conspicuously approved Phunsukh Wangdu, which will make The State and Bollywood of these “messages” from Bollywood, him successful beyond their wildest In the arts, film personalities the films and their viewpoints perhaps dreams. It is Chatur who now reminds India, Higher from Bollywood waited a virtual lifetime share an ideology with the government the two of his challenge 10 years back. before they were rewarded. Actor Dilip in some way. 3 Idiots being a film Kumar received the Padma Bhushan about higher education may, therefore, Many of the flashbacks in the Education and when he was 69 and Dev Anand when lead us into understanding something film deal with the figure of authority in 1 Baradwaj Rangan in he was 78. If Raj Kapoor received the about the State’s attitude towards the Imperial College – Professor Viru The New Indian Express, award much earlier (he was 47), it education, or at least provide us with Sahastrabudhhe (Boman Irani), whom the 27 December 2009. Bollywood was perhaps because of the “socialist” a broad ideological perspective. boys had nicknamed ViruS. The Professor 2 Prime Minister's speech messages his films were believed to was a hard task master who believed at the Satyagraha Reprinted from Economic & Political Weekly March 6, 2010 propagate. It is in this context that the The Plot: Past and Present in competition and success at any cost. Centenary Commemoration vol xlv no 10 with permission from the authors Padma Bhushan to Aamir Khan in 2010 – 3 Idiots begins with two former Virus had been so unsparing, that his at Kingsmead Stadium, when a more phenomenal star Shahrukh classmates Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) implacability led to a boy committing Durban, available at http:// Khan has had to be content with a and Farhan Qureshi (R Madhavan) going suicide. Virus, nonetheless, remained pmindia.nic.in/visits/ Padma Shri – deserves interpretation. in search of Rancho, whom they lost touch unmoved and cited his continued content.asp?id=123. Aamir Khan made a film about primary with after graduating as engineers from dedication to work after his own son’s 3 The film was shot education (Taare Zameen Par) in 2007 the “Imperial College of Engineering”. death. Particularly, galling to Virus was at the Indian Institute and is associated with another about The college is an elite institution which the fact that while Rancho was always of Management, higher education – Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 admits only the brightest students. playful, it was still he who stood first Bangalore, which is as Idiots in 2009. Aamir Khan is so closely Although its ownership is not specified, while Chatur came only second. Because glamorous a government- M. K. Raghavendra identified with “education” that visiting Raju comes from a poor family and is also of Rancho’s influence Farhan eventually run educational Film Scholar/ Critic based in Bangalore United States (US) Secretary of State not doing well enough for a scholarship, abandoned engineering as a career institution as any.

108 / 04 education 04 / 109 and became an international wildlife straitjacketed notion of education. This existence in a far-flung corner – except does not stand alone, and is from a milieu photographer; while Raju, despite his is the apparent message – but 3 Idiots as extensions of upper class city life. in which “education” is synonymous with poor showing in the final examination, nevertheless relies on Rancho coming elite education. The rat race in education impressed potential employers with his first to fully convince us of his abilities. An Unimaginable Journey is the preoccupation of only a small confidence, and found employment. His doing so effortlessly has a parallel It is perhaps in its failure to segment but it gets the attention of the in the dyslexic boy in Taare Zameen imagine, that 3 Idiots reveals its hidden State. If one is unconvinced one needs Raju, Farhan and Chatur now set Par demonstrating his prowess in the self eventually. Most of the protagonists only to look at the reported statements of off for Shimla to meet Rancho. Rancho’s subjects he was hopeless at – without in the film are given families and pasts the human resource development (HRD) name is actually Ranchoddas Shamaldas us knowing how he achieves it so that help us to understand and locate ministry. Here are some of them: in June Chanchad and they find the enormous easily. “Dog eat dog” and “rat race” are them. Farhan is a middle class boy and 2009 the minister suggested foreign Chanchad mansion without much disparaging terms for market-induced Raju’s father is a lowly paid white-collar direct investment in education to make it difficulty. When they find Ranchoddas, competitiveness but the films show worker trying to put his son through easier for those intending to go to Harvard however, they discover that he is not their little faith in the possibility of bypassing college. Even Pia, as the daughter of or Yale to avoid visa problems. “India has Rancho at all but someone else. Their the market in any circumstance. For a professor in an elite institution, is a the potential to be a global provider of graduation photograph hangs on the all his affinity to the poor children credible figure. But there is an evident quality graduates”, Kapil Sibal reportedly wall – with this man’s face on it instead of Ladakh, the former servant’s boy “absence” in the way Phunsukh Wangdu added.4 In August 2009, his proposed plan of Rancho’s. Who was Rancho really, they Phunsukh Wangdu can only be judged is imagined because the film does not to introduce grades instead of marks at wonder, and it comes out that “Rancho” on the basis of his American patents. give him any kind of recognisable past. the class 10 board exam level in central was a servant’s child in the Chanchad He is simply a “servant’s child” and we board of secondary education (CBSE) household who showed an aptitude Films like 3 Idiots are strangely get to see nothing of his background. schools caused consternation, and some for learning. Since the boy wanted positioned inasmuch as while they Even when Phunsukh Wangdu (as wondered what would happen if 90% “learning” and the actual Ranchoddas endeavour to deal with the “real issues” Rancho) arrives in college he has a and 99% were bunched together. How only a degree, the boy was admitted of today, they still depend on elements confidence far beyond that of someone would the schools differentiate merit5 to the Imperial College as Rancho. of the Bollywood fantasy. Since they accustomed to the life of a servant’s since higher education depended on it? conveniently shift from the one mode child entering an elite institution in India. When they finally locate to the other, it is difficult to say what Also, Phunsukh Wangdu has “hundreds In February 2010 Kapil Sibal Rancho, he is teaching local children aspects should be taken seriously. For of patents” to his credit but there is discussed a plan for an education finance in Ladakh’s wilderness, bringing instance, Rancho/Wangdu has established not even a hint about how he acquired corporation which would extend loans creativity to his “model school”. The a school in Ladakh. Anyone who has them. Bollywood abounds in fantasy but for higher education.6 By Kapil Sibal’s crowning bit of information is that seen Ladakh and knows its terrain in this inability to imagine Wangdu is an own admission, only around 2.5% of Rancho is actually Phunsukh Wangdu understands the difficulty that finding uncomfortable truth – that such a person schoolchildren pursue higher education – with hundreds of patents in the drinking water – let alone establishing is unimaginable. It is unimaginable that in India7 but the HRD ministry appears to US – and Chatur is, thus, humbled. a “model school” – represents. a servant’s child in India will become be giving a substantially larger proportion a celebrated inventor. Elite educational of its attention to it. Primary education Portraying Reality or Fantasy? The film shows the protagonists institutions are not for his kind even when is nonetheless still being attended to The fact that 3 Idiots has a large driving from Manali to Leh as easily as the institutions are publicly-owned. because a report says that with the number of comic moments does not one might from Churchgate to Chowpatty, passage of the Right to Education Act, detract from it being a film with a serious perhaps taking its notion of the Manali- 3 Idiots proposes that household the expenditure on primary education 4 Times of India, message on education. The message Leh highway from an automobile employees and their children can is estimated at Rs 70,000 crore per 25 June 2009. pertains to higher learning in India being advertisement. If 3 Idiots is a film with become inventors without being able to year.8 But the dissimilarity in the attitude 5 Mansi Sharma, CNN-IBN, rendered painful because of the emphasis a social concern it can be criticised for imagine their journey from their origins. towards higher and primary education 31 August 2009. placed on competition and the rat race. not being adequately concerned with the It supposes higher education without is significant. While attention is given 6 DNA, 1 February 2010. Creativity is the casualty, the film says, actual circumstances. If it is a “fantasy”, considering the level of primary education to issues in higher education, primary 7 Ibid. because of people having to submit to a then it shows itself incapable of imagining made available to their kind. Still, the film education is regarded generally in 8 Mint, 9 February 2010.

110 / 04 education 04 / 111 terms of outlay. The government seems increasingly as a clientele, attending to be asking the question: As long as disproportionately to segments which money is spent, will a difference not be can be served “viably”. This is perhaps made? This is perhaps like assuming the outcome of attending overly to the that household employees’ children can notions of profitability and sustainability. become inventors only through a love of learning, without even imagining the It is necessary to dwell at such kind of system this would call for. length on state interventions in education in a film review because Bollywood, in its Sharing Asymmetrical Concerns newly found avatar of concern, is a more If the recipients of the concern insidious entity than when it was merely in 3 Idiots are mainly those who have escapist. Where popular cinema was once scraped together enough finance for their treated with contempt, its success as a children to get into higher education, form of global entertainment has seen many of the HRD minister’s statements it being received with great respect by address the same issue. One of the most the State. The Indian state is becoming recent statements was the decision to more and more attentive to discourses put IIT fees on hold until the government in the combusiness world to guide it on had a mechanism in place that would matters of policy and it is here that the provide students with access to funds.9 attitude of 3 Idiots can be influential. Considering that Kapil Sibal has also been appealing to parents to stop Well-intentioned influence from pressurising children,10 it would appear cinema might have been acceptable that the government and Bollywood – in some sense – when the popular have virtually the same concerns. film had a broader mass base, but its preoccupation with the lives of a more This is strange because a affluent class makes its concerns narrow commercial venture like a film addresses and suspect. It is not enough for the State a chosen clientele but an elected to imagine a fully made servant’s-child- government must serve the public at as-inventor – it must also contribute to large. In addressing its clientele, 3 Idiots his making. It cannot adopt an attitude is not obliged to imagine such children of indifference to the actual process by to grow up to be Phunsukh Wangdus but which children from the lower strata that is not an exemption available to the may be made capable of reaching higher 9 The Hindu, 5 government. An explanation for the HRD levels of excellence. The fact that it February 2010. ministry’s preoccupation with higher does suggest that the Indian state today 10 1 February 2010, http:// rather than primary education may be that is ideologically close to mainstream www.newkerala.com/news/ with the government’s commitment to cinema and that its social concerns are fullnews-42627.html the market economy, it regards the public as asymmetrical as those of Bollywood.

112 / 04 education M. K. Raghavendra 04 / 113