Common people, intellectuals and the tragedy of Alexandria

Satyavrat
English translation from Hindi – Pawel parashar

It’s worth giving a thought that why  the honest section of intellectuals in our society which has not yet fallen prey to the present naked- despotic pragmatist culture and has not been able to digest the opportunist philosophy of life, stands alone in its struggle for its principles and ideals. A scientist who is honestly pursuing his research work in an institute among the bureaucrats and his research stealing and share purchasing so called “scientist” colleagues ends up losing his mental wellness or even in suicides in such a suffocating environment.  And this is a very common phenomenon and not an exception. Many research fellows become  “domestic aid” of their research guides during their course of research. The research directors of these researchers get their names printed on top of their research papers without any contribution and many a times their research falls prey to direct academic robbery.

Students in medical and engineering colleges continue to suffocate in an extreme form of despotic atmosphere but never dare to speak up due to the fear of their career being destroyed. I know a very skilled surgeon from a medical college who never had any blind lust for money and thus didn’t end up in any private practice or nursing home business and honestly performed his teaching work and surgery in the medical college hospital. He was a very qualified teacher and very popular among his students and never became a “courtier” to the Head of the Department.  As a punishment, he was never promoted even to the post of reader for years whereas other surgeons junior to him ended up becoming professors. He remained a patient of depression for years and no one came for his help.

Let’s take this issue ahead. Laws are framed to crush the Freedom of Speech, in Tamil Nadu, the ruling party not only tortures the journalists with the help of its majority in legislature, rather goes to the extent of beating them up and insulting them by the party workers. Despite a lot of uproar in newspapers, leave aside the 70 percent working class population of the country, not even the “educated” middle class gets outraged. When teachers struggle against the black laws violating their democratic rights or for their very much legitimate demands  then common people, rather than supporting them, blame and criticize the teachers only. When students intensify their struggle against bureaucracy in education or against the education policy depriving majority of the population from education or for any other justified demands, then a common citizen blames the students  alleging them of spoiling the atmosphere of study  or being anarchists.

The struggles of honest intellectuals or the legitimate struggles of the community don’t even fetch sympathy from the common people, leave aside an active support. When you ask this question from someone from the intellectual community itself, they will put the blame on the backward consciousness and lack of education and ignorance of the masses. Else they will say that when there is a lack of unity among the intellectual community as a whole then what can be expected from the masses. As far as the former view is concerned , it is an illusion born to the mindset of self-importance in the minds of intellectual aristocracy . As far as the latter view is concerned , it is merely a repetition of one of the aspects of the problem rather than an answer to the basic question arising to the problem.

Renowned scientist Carl Sagan in his book Cosmos, has discussed context from history which gives an overview and a new corner to look into this problem. In this book he has discussed about a world famous library in the ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt. Scholars from all over the world came here for research, study and debates. Undoubtedly, it was a milestone in the history of human civilization and development of science and knowledge. However Sagan also discusses the other side of the coin too that how the disintegration of the ancient society led to the arson, destruction and plundering of the library and a precious treasure of knowledge was lost in the darkness of history.

The oversimplified historical interpretation of this event has very often been put forward that often in history conveyors of advanced civilizations have been destroyed by those of barbaric civilizations. But Sagan didn’t believe this analysis. He had his own interpretation. He explains that such “advanced” civilizations in history very often were built on the foundation of widespread and  ferocious slavery of the common masses. The library of Alexandria which was the pride of the “advanced” ancient Egyptian civilization, that civilization was based on barbaric slavery of those who had built all the magnificence and splendor which led to the construction of such a splendid library. Sagan continues

In the complete history of this library, nowhere do we find any evidence that any celebrated scientist or scholar ever seriously challenged the political-economic or religious assumptions. Fixity of stars was questioned but not the justification of slavery.  In general, science and range of seeking knowledge was reserved for a handful of privileged. The masses of the town had not even a dim idea of the great researches happening in the library. Interpretation of the new inventions and discoveries and popularizing them among the masses was never done. Scientists never realized the importance of machines in liberating the people. The great intellectual achievements of ancient times had very limited practical application. Science never excited the brains of the common people. There was no counterbalance to impasse, pessimism and surrender to mysticism. And in the end when crowd came to burn the library, then there was no one to stop them.

Whether it is the question of unattachment of masses towards important issues related to science and technology,  the gravest of the problems faced by academic and intellectual world or the question of lack of support from the masses towards the legitimate struggles of the intellectual community on the issue of education or any other important issue, the core issue is that if the intellectual class doesn’t make the society realize the social meaningfulness of its role, if the whole knowledge treasure of the intellectual class continues to remain its private property and doesn’t question the unjust social structure, if knowledge is not handed over to the people as the torchlight of liberation, if the intellectual class uses knowledge as a tool to enhance its social status and if the intellectual class uses  this social property (knowledge) for its personal consumption not being agitated by any issue affecting the lives of the masses, if the intellectual class continues its mental labour in the islands of libraries-institutes-laboratories, then in that case whenever the intellectual class itself falls into the prey of the arbitrariness of the system on any issue or faces any hindrance from the system to his research and study, how can it expect the masses to stand in solidarity with its struggle ?

Those who have been made aristocrats by the education and as a result have been detached from the masses, until they consciously try to attach themselves with the masses,  the common people will never support their cause and struggles, leave aside participating in them.

Scientists who consider their struggle as aloof of the struggle of  society, those who consider science indifferent to the societal division of rulers and ruled and wander in the mirage of “freedom to research”, they are left with nothing else but defeat, hopelessness, mental instability and suicide. The blind race to sell their intellectual ability as a commodity in market to get maximum price leaves them with no scope even to unite among themselves. But once they start considering knowledge as a social property  and themselves as mental laborers forced to sell their intellectual labor for piece wage, once they start recognizing their position in this social framework and choose their side, then situations are definitely going to be different.

Ahwan Campus times, 16-31 May 1992