The Monitor had succeeded in demonising the Board of Management (BOM) of the school. Initially, when he began poisoning the ears of students, only a little knot of them listened to him. He would arrange meetings, give long speeches, and bill the members of the management as a bunch of thugs. After a few days, some more students began joining the group. Soon, well-nigh, the entire school participated in his meetings.
The Monitor had a gift of gab and could easily whip up a crowd. His speeches were so powerful that even some students recorded them and got them published in the monthly school magazine—the faculty entrusted with the job of selecting articles and poems for the magazine was in league with the Monitor.
The Monitor kept running down the BoM. He pulled out all the stops in disparaging even the institute's founders, who were already six feet under. It was no doubt due to their hard work and iron cast resolve that the school was ranked among the top-tier institutes in town. They had roped in the best educationists from across the country who beavered away for months at preparing the syllabus and devising the new teaching methods. Even only a few years ago, when a foreign team of academics visited the school, they found the syllabus quite relevant and were impressed by their way of teaching.
One of them, who is affiliated with a top university in the world and has written extensively on the modern education system, jotted down in the visitors' book :
“I'm highly impressed. I've only seen such type of modern schools in some European states where the students could do different syllabuses according to their own abilities. The faculty is enough liberal in outlook and use avant-garde methods to facilitate learning”.
But all this had hardly made a scrap of difference for the Monitor. His immediate goal was to replace the BoM with a new one that would be subservient to the Headmaster. It was the Headmaster who had thrown his full weight behind the Monitor and prodded him into provoking the students.
The Headmaster had many things up his sleeve. Even the Monitor did not know about everything he was up to. The Headmaster wanted to change the curriculum and form a new BoM, drawing its members from a particular section of people.
He was known for his extreme conservative views and sheer authoritarian tendencies. He wanted servile obedience from a BoM and over the last many years, he had been working to achieve this goal. He took the Monitor into confidence to further his interests as the students had the prerogative to elect three of the five BoM members. The rest two were nominated by the Trust running the school.
The Monitor, on the other hand, wanted his name to be etched on the Orange Plate, a yellow-red colour stone erected outside the conference hall of the schools. The names of only those monitors were to be engraved on the stone who could retain the position for at least 5 years in a row. In the next month, the Monitor would enter his 5th year and he needed the support of the Headmaster as the by-laws of the school had empowered the Headmaster to elect the monitor for the 5th year. The coveted distinction was achieved by only two monitors in the seven-decade-long history of the school – one later became the mayor of the town and the second, carved a niche in modern medicine.
The existing BoM was aware of the designs of the Headmaster and they tried hard to give him a pink slip, but he was appointed for a period of 10 years and any such move would have been a flagrant disrespect to by-laws.
A few days before the election of the new BoM, it became clear to the elected members of the BoM that only a scant percentage of students would vote in their favour.
The election was held. The members supported by the Monitor-Headmaster league romped home. Soon a new BoM assumed the office. The Headmaster and Monitor rejoiced in their victory. A few weeks later, the Monitor’s name was etched on the Orange stone. The Headmaster altered the by-laws in such a way that gave him more teeth. He also convened a flurry of meetings to review the curriculum. He ordered the blue-penciling of many scientifically proven theories, arguing that they sharply contrasted with the teachings of their forefathers. He believed that such theories were the conspiracies of scholars and scientists living in Godless states, and their main aim was to digress the people of their great nation from its civilization and age-old practices rooted in thousand-year-long history.
The Headmaster proceeded with his radical reforms and formed multiple committees with all his decisions being readily passed by the BoM.
One of the committees was on "spirits". Its members were drawn from the finest priest community of the town. The objective of the committee was to purge the students, struggling academically of evil spirits. Two students who had flunked maths were asked to appear before the committee. Their parents were informed to bring some sacred aromatic seeds and threads to the school next week.
Now, some new subjects on mythology, black magic, and its impacts on human health and welfare are being taught in the school. The school has changed radically since the BoM elections.
But is the school still ranked among the top institutions? The Monitor and the Headmaster could only answer.
Gulzar Bhat is a Srinagar-based journalist
