Why Rahul Gandhi was right to admit he didn’t know about NCC training

To admit ignorance is the highest knowledge. It is a necessary precondition for all learning. So says Tom Spanbauer, American writer on race and sexuality, who also teaches a concept he calls "Dangerous Writing".

And yet, there has been too much hullabaloo this weekend over a question asked to Congress president Rahul Gandhi about the National Cadet Corps, to which he replied with a politically criminal phrase: I don't know.

The question asked by a student was: "After passing the 'C' certificate by NCC, what are the facilities you want to give to us? What benefits?" The answer: "I don't know the details of NCC training, and that type of stuff. So I won't be able to answer that question."

The Congress president then went on to talk about opportunities he would like to secure for a "young Indian person" before reiterating, "The details of the NCC… I don't know exactly what training you go through."

With the Karnataka Assembly elections round the corner and the national polls not very far, the incident lost no time in becoming an agenda for national discourse. Gandhi had spoken about not knowing the details of NCC training, but this was blown up on electronic and social media networks to indicate he didn't know anything about the NCC and that he had insulted one of independent India's truly remarkable institutions.

Indeed, one reading social media and wire updates (including cadets and Union ministers weighing in with their views and the Congress and BJP handles going to the battlefield) on the subject should be forgiven for thinking this was a case of Rahul Gandhi vs NCC, which it was clearly not.

Perhaps, Gandhi should have handled the question more tactfully, as politicians are wont to do. He should have danced around it to sprout generic praise of the NCC and then said he would study the C Certificate examination, but that cadets who passed it were regardless deserving of every facility or benefit that it was possible for the state to offer them. But this sort of reply, while being politically sound, amounted to neither a commitment nor a conversation.

More to the point, such a reply would have been repugnant to the core values of the NCC, a fine corps I have had the honour of being a part of in my early college days. What drew my interest in the NCC, above all, was the simple but moving elaboration of the meaning of "unity" from its motto of "unity and discipline" in its national song:

Mandir Gurudwaare Bhi Hain Yahan

Aur Masjid Bhi Hai Yahan

Girija Ka Hai Ghariyaal Kahin

Mullah ki Kahin Hai Ajaan

Ek Hee Apna Ram Hain, Ek hi Allah Taala Hai,

Ek Hee Allah Taala Hain, Raang Birange Deepak Hain Hum,

lekin Jagmag Ek Hai, Ha Ha Ha Ek Hai, Ho Ho Ho Ek Hai.

Hum Sab Bharatiya Hain, Hum Sab Bharatiya Hain.

Who has written these words? Nobody really knows, as the NCC website page on the history of the song will tell you.

This frank admission of ignorance is in keeping with the core values of the NCC, of which the last two are especially worth repeating here:

(j) Understanding the values of honesty, truthfulness, self-sacrifice, perseverance and hard work.

(k) Respect for knowledge, wisdom and the power of ideas.

What facilities should be given to a person who passed the "C" certificate NCC examination, the highest certificate a member of the NCC can receive? A simple Google search will suggest, vaguely, that this certificate grants its holders a kind of priority and benefits of entry into the Armed Forces and government jobs, but the answer to this question needs to be discussed and resolved through a far more informed engagement on the issue. For instance, besides studying the training itself and what benefits can be allocated to "C" certificate holders, one would have to debate the question of how differently to prioritise those candidates who have achieved these certificates with different grades.

As ideal as it would be for every political leader to have an answer to a policy related question of this nature, a close second to this ideal would be to admit openly when she or he doesn't know enough about the facts to issue a statement on the subject, rather than use it as an opportunity to indulge in token rhetoric.

But then, Gandhi's answer and the response to it points to a larger malaise plaguing public discourse today. It is a malaise that expects us to know everything and expect the country's political leaders to know everything, and raise hell when they do not.

This malaise, which would root itself in the past on television sound bytes and reductive multiple talking-head debates, has now found free reign on social media. To "social-mediatise" a debate is, in most cases, to reduce what could have been considered opinion into a limited character count, put out in the heat of a news cycle.

What's worse: in the event of our putting out half-baked thoughts, we feel compelled to defend them, even at the cost of logic. What's worst: We attach complex ideas on politics and policy to personalities, parties and camps on social media, papering over actual issues at hand. It is rare today to find on social media those who would disagree vociferously with demonetisation, or draw attention to the increasing number of atrocities on Dalits, while backing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Similarly, we would be hard-pressed to find someone who would disagree with the Congress' stand on GST, or admit to the party's failings on caste and communal issues, while remaining - on the whole and relatively speaking - a Congress supporter.

This is a malaise that has spread, as malaise do, to the leaders as well, who have begun to project they know everything for - when one has an election to fight in this environment - incertitude is death.

And so you have the rollouts of mammoth programmes such as demonetization, JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile) and GST (Goods and Services Tax) without allowing for alternatives in the interim period of difficulty, room for feedback and consequent modification. Without allowing for longer phases of rollout where every stakeholder is allowed to come in with complaints and suggestions for improvement. Because the government simply cannot hear itself say: Maybe, just maybe, we don't know.

A similar attitude seems to pervade the University Grant Commission's move to grant "autonomy" to 60 (some stellar) higher education institutions, despite protests from several key stakeholders that this is nothing other than paving the road for privatisation of education, which contains within itself a threat of derailment for the sector.

Yet, political leaders and their supporters are so fearful of phrases like "policy paralysis" and 'U-Turn Sarkaar' that they are rushing to meet the other end: "policy authoritarianism" and "steamroll sarkaar". What follows is a polarised discourse, devoid of nuances, comprising people championing ridiculous causes on one side, and those screaming for their blood on the other. Everyone wants a "strong leader" - which is a synonym for "all knowing leader" - without realising that such a construct comes with a caveat. Once such an image is established, there is little space for disagreement and dissent, both for you as well as for the leader.

A crucial component of the fear of the unknown is the fear of being wrong. Yet, this fear is best overcome not by myopically imposing ideas over those affected by them but, rather, by travelling slowly but surely with them along the journey of knowledge. The first step towards this destination has to be an admission of ignorance. Always.

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