Lift the Veil on the Parampara

CONTEXT: The system of Guru-Shishya prampara that prevails in the Indian music system is said to beset with patriarchy, inequality, power imbalance and dehumanization and thus needs reforms.

Issues with Guru-Shishya Parampara: 

• Power Asymmetry: Guru- shishya parampara is grounded in a power imbalance.

• Unequal bargaining power: Guru being in a position of power, exploit the students physically and psychologically. Students are prone to abuse.

• Vulnerability increases if the student is from a marginalized community.

• Inequality being romanticized: Inequality and power imbalance is celebrated in guru-shishya parampara.

• Students committed to hours of guru’s household chores under the pretext of ‘Guru testing the student’.

• Psychological manipulation and emotional trauma are perceived as part of the process.
• Guru as Divine: Guru/teachers are seen as divine figures by our society, without any imperfections. For, E.g. long-standing tradition of Guru Dakshina portrays teacher as God.

• Concretised version of Past: 
• While in other fields, teachers and students have drifted apart, each finding their own areas of influence. 
• But in the guru-shishya parampara of Indian “classical” music and dance, rarely can a shishya stand up against her or his guru and hope to survive another day.
• Risk of being informal: Informality can sometimes result in episodes of incredible learning, while on other occasions, there are just demands made by the guru because he is in a position to make them.

Benefits of Guru-Shishya Parampara:

• Intimate Learning: Due to co-habitation, learning often took place in an informal and personal manner. 

• Wisdom-sharing during daily activities helped students learn about civic ethics involved.

• Going Beyond Syllabus: There was no defined syllabus, as it varied with respect to student, teacher and allotted time.

• Guru- Shishya parampara goes beyond the usual confinement of syllabus as it involves a multidisciplinary approach.

Way Ahead:

• Humanisation of Guru: Guru/teacher should be considered as a ‘human’ with domain expertise.
• Unquestionable discipline and obedience should be done away with.
• Respect beyond the domain should arise from the mutually-evolving relationship.
• Empowering Student: Learning should be re-designed in order for it to muster respect from students, that recognizes the rights and independence of students and empowers students emotionally and psychologically.
• Informal Teaching: Formal classroom teaching can be regulated, but informal teaching should be given special care owing to the very basis of informality, which is unique and unconditioned space for learning.
• There is a lot to learn beyond the school-university-class framework, but such an arrangement cannot be an arbitrary, uncaring, student on-call system.

Conclusion: As Kalidasa said about poetry: “Not all poems are good because they are old. All poems are not bad because they are new. Good and wise people examine both and decide whether a poem is good or bad. Only a fool will be blindly led by what others say.”