In Conversation with Vipin Kumar Tripathi, ex-IIT Professor and Anti-Communalism Activist - Part 2

I think whosoever is able to do that, that is a good thing. But I think this is not a big movement at the moment in our country. But my position is rather simple.

My position is that there is defense cooperation with Israel, there is economic and educational cooperation as well, and we certainly value some of these cooperations. I certainly want that the people of Israel and people of India should be having an academic interaction with each other, more understanding with each other. Similarly, the people of Palestine also deserve to come to India for education - all their educational institutes have been demolished in Gaza or West Bank.

So, we need to develop people-to-people contexts, academic interaction, and those kinds of things. Certainly, we want that with Israel as well as with the Palestinian people. But this is currently an emergency situation. Two years of war have pushed the entire 2.2 million population of Gaza to the verge of extinction, the verge of death. So until this stops, we must non-cooperate with that government.

We should end all cooperation with the regime rather than the people.

Well, these days I don't watch mainstream television channels, because they take the government position. And I really feel very disgusted, deeply pained by their attitude either to domestic criminal violence, or global war. I think their attitude is very, very superficial and inhuman. I really… I feel disgusted with that. Media has lost its sense of responsibility.

I was puzzled to hear a statement from a judge in Maharashtra High Court. When CPIM wanted permission to hold a meeting in Bombay, the police did not allow them. Those people went to the court then the judge asks a question, “Don't you have problems in India to look after? Why are you worried about the problems that are happening thousands of miles away?”

I think the judge must close his eyes and look at himself. If he forgets his position that he's a great man, like a judge, that he's intellectual - if he looks closely at his stature, forgetting that stature - he will find Gaza in front of him. In an atrocity of the magnitude of what is happening in Gaza - people are being starved to death besides bombing - what is the distinction between them and the judge, or me?

We are human beings, and all human beings of the world are one. And if an atrocity of its magnitude is going on somewhere, you feel concerned. I think the judge must do a serious introspection. I'm not very sure how many judges are of that brand. I have met some police officers of that kind. And that is a danger in our country.

I had an interaction in 2014 when the election was going on, and I was distributing flyers near my village, Lalitpur, when a policeman approached me in the guise of plain clothes. He says, “Whose flyers are you distributing? You are breaching peace.” He took me to a nearby police chowki and then left - he kept me sitting there for 2 hours. At that time, I was only a professor in IIT and I had to take a train two hours later. So, for one and a half hours I was sitting there, and then I asked the local policeman why I'm sitting here. He says that, sir, I do not know. I asked, “Can you talk to the District Magistrate?” So, somehow, he connected to his secretary, and then the DM asked me to leave. So then I left. So that was one encounter. And, the second was on 15th of August this year, at Rajghat. It was very unpleasant, abusive, but not violent.

When I returned from America in 1983, and joined IIT, then my first thing was that I must liberate my students from prejudice - about working classes, farmers, women, Muslims, and about caste. All kinds of prejudice. Because I thought that, unless your mind is free from prejudice, you will not be able to see the agony, or exploitation, or repression, or oppression of masses. And once you see the oppression with clarity of mind there will be an upsurge in you to register or speak out against that oppression. So, for 5-6 years, I did that, and that was a good interaction that I developed with my students.

Education was a part of my drive against prejudice. And 1989 onwards, when I started working on communalism, I started teaching outside IIT in underprivileged localities. I picked some schools where results were very poor and mainly the students were failing in 10th grade in mathematics. I picked a school in Ambedkar Nagar, Sector 5, in Delhi, and three of us would go on Saturday and teach mathematics to about 240 students.

So that has been my activity, to touch the hearts of students from two points of view: that they should have no pressure of the exam and they should develop a clarity and confidence in the subjects they are weak in, that's one thing; and secondly, I wanted them to develop a feeling of friendship with their colleagues, whether classmates, or people in their neighborhood. Whether they are Muslims, or lower caste, upper caste, girls and boys, etc. So these two things, I wanted to build friendship, and also to remove any pressures.

Then I went to Gujarat in 2002.  Afterwards I used to visit every month. My effort was to bring the people in riot-affected villages back from refugee camps to their villages. I would go to the villagers and tell them, "Please create conditions conducive for the return of refugees.” I did that for many months. After 9 months, I realized that in Godhra, from where the violence started, there was night curfew. Even during the daytime Hindu autorickshaw men would not be able to go to the Muslim locality, and vice versa. That was very disheartening.

So I suggested to some of my friends that, “let's hold a mathematics workshop for 1,000 students, 500 Hindu students, and 500 Muslim students. I think through that, they will develop understanding.” Through that workshop, we mobilized 24 teachers, including myself, and 1,000 students. We covered, I think, eight topics in two days of 10th grade.

That year, the high school result was, I think, 27% in Godhra District, and the majority of the students who failed were in mathematics. So mathematics certainly was a tough subject for most. I had developed some techniques to explain mathematics concepts in a simpler way and that was helpful. But towards the end, I gave a talk for an hour on humanism. And those 1,000 students listened with attentivity. And I'm pretty sure, though there was no advertisement in newspapers or media, that 1,000 families of those students got the message. And, so I realized the potential of education - in reaching out to the hearts of the students, and changing their attitude or, removing prejudice from their minds.

And then onwards, I started doing that in many places. That is a major part of my activities, going to colleges and schools, or organizing workshops or gaming lectures. There is a college in Uttar Pradesh in Azamgarh where every year I hold a three day physics workshop for BSc and MSc students. About 250 students participate in that. For 18 years, I have been organizing the Mother Teresa Workshop in mathematics. But when we talk about mathematics for a whole day, at the end for one hour we will discuss social issues and human issues.

So this is how I use education.

Unfortunately, I'm very poor in handling social media. I have a very small phone. My daughter sometimes puts my videos on YouTube, and some friends do it once in a while. So, certainly social media is helpful in increasing the reach. But, I'm unfortunately not good in that.

I would only like to add that in the 20th century two major things evolved. One was that the atom bomb was developed, which is very dangerous for human civilization. And the second thing, sectarianism evolved as a major weapon in sabotaging freedom movements.  It was a major weapon that led to World War II. So, sectarianism is a major issue - prejudice is a major issue. Organized prejudice is a very major issue in India. For the last 30 years, the prime mover of Indian polity is prejudice. 

So, I want to appeal to my countrymen that please, you are human beings! We are given eyes! We can see the sky! When we see the sky, we feel… we forget our existence, our being. Then you enjoy the sky, the sun, the moon. Similarly, when you see human beings, don't put the labels of caste, creed, religion, nationality, gender on him or her, look at the person in totality, then you will be really seeing.

Just like we become one with the sun when we see the sun, we become one with the sky when we see the sky, similarly, when you see a human being, look at his or her pain, her worries, humiliation, joy! Then you will be a part of the person, and you will touch her heart or his heart, and this is what you are meant for. So don't degrade yourself for prejudice. Don't make yourself… worse than an animal.

I think we as human beings are filled with the ocean of love and that must fill out. So I would like to appeal, please do a little bit of introspection. See the sky, You will get a message from this, the sky, and that will make you a better human being, and this way we will be able to make society a better place, our country a better place, and the world a better place. This is what my thing is.

And I would like to sing a share of my ghazal - when Gujarat violence was going on, I used to go to riot-affected villages and their neighborhoods, and going door-to-door would take me time. One morning, a ghazal came to my mind: