The politics class got over today. It was well taught, at least till the halfway line, and then it sort of drifted. Some of the discussions were intellectually stimulating and forced us to think on issues from perspectives we normally did not since we were not informed enough. The political history did help us, I must say.

But the instructor was stubborn and adamant on his views. He did invite our opinion but only to blast in it in the end. He was willing to argue, but with only one end in consideration - that he would prevail. Even when he was on the losing end, he was not gracious...instead he found some irrelevant detail to criticise. It was as if he was bent upon taking some chunk out of the victor. I believe that if u cannot be gracious in defeat, you can never win; in the same way as you cannot be humorous unless u can be self effacing.

But what has mattered more is the reaction of a particular student, called P. P told me, and i have no reason to doubt her, that she is not liked by K, who is one of the teachers here. Now, when P did a front page story and went to K for his consent and comments, he spiked it and told her to start afresh. When P went and as she says, did the story assiduously, he again rebuked her. So now P has gone around telling any faculty member she can find, that K is a asshole who is after her. While she argues that she must voice her opinion, and be not afraid of anybody, I think this is shooting oneself in the foot. It is of course a right to express your opinion. But then its expression has to achieve the purpose of communicating to the target people the truth. If P alone says that and no one else does, it might result in the opposite - that people actually thinking that she's the only one who is saying this. Of course, they might also realise that K has this thing against her and is the sort of person who likes to victimise people.

Frankly there is no evidence of that. This is the case with most leftists. They do it in such a subtle way that the aggrieved can never prove that this is a fault in his personality. Stalin had huge concentration camps in Serbia, called Gulag, and resorted to cruel repression of Russians and of other nations that formed Soviet Russia but still was eulogised for being a great leader because the information about the camps never got out till long after his death. In the same way, if K is going after just one student on purpose, he will take care not to do the same to the other students. He indeed has followed this approach.

But I must also say that maybe P is perceiving matters incorrectly. Maybe K is just being harsh to show her how an actual newspaper works. His methods may not be exactly conducive to create a learning experience, but his intentions might not be nefarious. Before acting one needs to introspect. I know that P usually does that but she also tends to act on impulse sometimes. And she does have strong opinions. I think that she did nothing wrong at all but now she should stop. After all, she is here to be a journalist and one man should not be given so much of an importance, howsoever unfair he might be, because as i have already pointed out, he has cleverly gone about it. So deal with it as it is for sometime, tell some people, but don't start a crusade. Because it is of benefit, both for oneself and the society, when some result comes out of it. If suppose he was censored for this, then well, the objective of stripping him off his facade would have been achieved. But reality is different and she can win only if she takes that into consideration.

I wish her all luck as I admire her courage and the ability to speak out when required. Only thing is some tempering is needed. Tact and planning with courage is what wins battles. An argument is only a small thing in comparison! In the next post, I will write about the institute in which this is happening.