New Delhi: “I am just your Mukherjee sir. I am not the president of India or a politician now. I would be happy if you call me Mukherjee sir,” President Pranab Mukherjee requested students on a day he took an off from his high-profile responsibilities as the head of state to teach a class on the eve of Teachers’ Day.
A visibly-happy Mukherjee, who taught the students at the Sarvodaya Vidyalaya on the president’s estate the brief political history of India since independence, even asked the children to tell him when they were feeling bored.
Covering a wide spectrum of issues from pre-independence famine in Benga, to post-liberalisation India to the Anna Hazare movement for Jan Lokpal as he saw it, the president’s one hour lecture was dotted with references to Mukherjee’s own childhood and school years in which he recalled how he had to go to school walking through wet paddy fields in his village.
“Whenever I would complain to my mother that I can’t walk five km each way every day, she would say you don’t have any option. You have to do it,” he recalled.
Asked by a student, on who had the biggest influence in his life, Mukherjee replied it was his mother and a school principal who taught him English.
The president, known for his sharp memory throughout his political career, said this talent was also due to his mother who always asked him to recollect what all he had done through the day.
“She sharpened my memory by making me recollect the events of the day chronologically.”
Travelling further into his memories, Mukherjee noted that he was “going back to the role of a teacher after many years”.
“The last time I taught was in 1968... many of you were not even born then,” he said.
The president also joked that his past as a teacher was reflected even in his speeches in parliament when sometimes he felt that he was giving a lecture to politicians.
He also took questions from some students.
To a question on how to overcome teenage problems, the president replied the basic problem in the country was poverty and nothing else.
As another student asked him whether if his parents’ claim that he would not be able to get a job if he pursued his love of music was true, Mukherjee said, “It is partially true.”
Mukherjee was born in the village of Mirati in Birbhum district of West Bengal in 1935. His father was a Congress leader who endured great hardship including being sent to jail several times for his role in India’s struggle for independence.
Mukherjee acquired a Master’s degree in history and political science as well as a degree in law from the University of Kolkata and then embarked on his professional life as a college teacher before joining politics full time in 1969. He narrated to the students how the constitution of the country was framed after 300 people toiled over its contents for a long time.
Mentioning about the 1943 Bengal famine, the president told the students that it was actually a man-made famine in which people found it difficult to buy rice even at `1 per kg.
The president touched upon the historical background of the issue, saying the constitution came into existence three years after the nation attained independence in 1947.
Sharing his experiences as a student, the president reminisced not many facilities were available during his school days.
“I was not a very good student... I would complain to my mother that I would not go to school any more as I had to walk for three to four kilometres to reach there every day,” he recalled, as students of class 11 and 12 listened with rapt attention.
“My mother then told me that since I didn’t have any other option, I would have to study hard,” he said.
The president also told the students that experiments with ideas of public interest were beneficial for the Indian democracy. “Indian people are making experiments (with ideas).”
Referring to the concepts such as universal voting rights, free and fair voting mechanism, an independent election commission, he said people continue to question if the country had progressed and what more it could achieve.
“The powerful instruments are developing as offshoots of this thinking of the civil society, NGOs, social movements,” he explained.
Recalling social activist Anna Hazare’s public movement, the president said people have the right to question.
“If people feel that the MPs and the governments were not doing their jobs, they cannot sit idle.”
IANS
