Ajay Kumar, Sr Journalist, Lucknow
The Musallahpur Hat area of Patna, Bihar, is considered the center of hope for students preparing for competitive examinations across the country. However, the pictures and news that emerged from this area recently have not only shamed this temple of education but have also left a deep stain on the glorious knowledge tradition of Bihar. The streets where bundles of books, pens, and notebooks were visible from morning to evening suddenly echoed with stone-pelting, batons, and aerial firing. This dispute is not merely a mutual fight between two coaching institutes, but it is a naked display of that market of crores of rupees running in the name of education, where a war for crowd and supremacy is being fought solely by putting the future of students at stake. This so-called ‘coaching war’ has proved that when education becomes a business, the decline of morality and social responsibility reaches its nadir.
The beginning of this entire ruckus happened due to a very minor and childish reason, knowing which the head of any civilized society would bow down in deep disappointment. It is being reported that large posters and banners were put up by one coaching institute, claiming the success of about 12,000 students in the Bihar Police Recruitment Examination. It is alleged that these posters were pasted on top of or very close to the signboards of the rival coaching institute. Following this, the process of tearing down banners by placing ladders began in this war of supremacy. This small spark of tearing posters turned into such a fire in no time that it shook the entire security apparatus and law and order of the area. Supporters of both sides came face-to-face, batons were wielded, bricks and stones were pelted, and within no time, the campus where thousands of students come to weave dreams of their bright future turned into the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
Following the sequence of events, teacher Faizal Khan alias his promoted name with honorific as Khan Sir, who is a maestro of social media and an idol to lakhs of youth, came before the media and made highly sensational claims. He said with absolute seriousness in front of the camera that his coaching center was attacked and he had seen with his own eyes not just one or two, but eight to ten rounds of firing taking place. Hearing such a thing from the mouth of a teacher spread panic among parents and students across the entire state. But when the guardians of law started investigating this matter deeply and began scanning the CCTV footage installed at the spot as well as in the surrounding lanes, the story flipped completely. In the initial investigation of the police, no evidence of firing or any outsider shooting was found anywhere. On the contrary, it was clearly visible in the CCTV that Faizal Khan’s own security guards were seen brandishing weapons in the air and attacking. Following this disclosure, the police showed promptness, took those two guards into custody, and Faizal Khan himself had to face a long interrogation late at night.
The astonishing fact is that the teacher who was testifying at night about bullets raining before his own eyes, completely changed his tune by the time morning arrived. Taking a U-turn from his own claims, he started saying that the reality would be known only after the police investigation, or else his injured guard would tell the truth when he recovered. Such a contradiction in the statements of a teacher and such gross negligence regarding facts is extremely worrisome. Former President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan had once said that a teacher is not one who merely stuffs facts into the mind, but one who prepares the student for the search of truth. But today, in this digital era, both the facts and the truth of these so-called ‘Gurus’ have come under serious cloud of suspicion.
The second aspect of this dispute is even more frightening. On the complaint of Faizal Khan, the police immediately arrested Roushan Anand, the Director of Gyan Bindu Coaching. Roushan Anand comes from a very ordinary farmer family of Bihar and had carved a niche for himself in this field on the strength of his hard work. After his arrest, a new drama unfolded on the streets of Patna. In support of Roushan Anand, thousands of students hit the streets and started protesting violently. The students allege that Fiazal Khan has levelled false allegations against their Guru due to political and commercial rivalry. Think about it, the youth who at this time should have been locked in rooms preparing for examinations, are raising slogans on the streets and are bent upon taking the law into their hands under the blind faith of their respective favorite teachers. This is a clear indication that these famous YouTube teachers of today, instead of making children better citizens, are transforming them into a ‘troll army’ and a violent mob for their personal interests.
This is not the first time that such an uproar has occurred on the land of Patna due to coaching operators. History is witness that in the year 2019 as well, an incident of bombing took place over supremacy in this very Musallahpur area. At that time too, cases were registered from both sides, but due to lack of concrete action, the morale of these shopkeepers remained high. This year too, on the occasion of Saraswati Puja, reports of similar violent clashes had emerged. If the police and administration had tightened the noose around these commercial institutions in time, this situation would not have arisen today. The question arises whether we send our children to these coaching centers by paying hefty fees so that they return bloody from there? If this stone-pelting had happened during the daytime when thousands of students are present in the class, and that stone had hit the head of some innocent child, who would take the responsibility for it? Would these teachers, intoxicated by their immense wealth and TRP, be able to pay the price of a child’s life?
The bitterest truth of this whole game is the conflict of economic interests. It is often propagated that some teachers are doing social service for very little money. But when the fee structures of both institutions are compared, the reality turns out to be something else entirely. Where one institution charges ten thousand rupees in instalments for a two-year offline course, the other institution extracts twenty thousand rupees upfront. In online courses too, the difference in fees is as vast as the distance between heaven and earth. Obviously, this entire fight is not for any educational reform or the welfare of poor children, but it is a corporate war to attract maximum students towards themselves and build a turnover of crores of rupees.
Now this matter has taken a completely legal turn. Patna Police has registered an FIR against Faizal Khan, the operator of Khan Global Studies, at Kadamkuan police station under the Arms Act and serious sections of spreading misleading information. However, after the FIR was registered, Faizal Khan very cleverly gave a statement that he had no information about this and whatever his guards did, they did in self-defense. Although he talks about respecting the law, his track record in the past speaks otherwise. Whether it is inciting students to violent protests during the railway examination, using abusive language during the BPSC examination, or recently spoiling the atmosphere by giving provocative statements like encounters in the NEET paper leak case, he has had an old connection with controversies.
When any mainstream medium questions this dangerous methodology of these coaching institutes and their falling standards, these YouTube teachers start digital lynching by using their lakhs of followers. An army of trolls is unleashed on social media, which crosses all limits of decency and resorts to abuse. By citing the rankings of foreign NGOs like International Press Freedom, attempts are made to defame the journalism of the country, while they themselves forget what kind of immoral business they are running in the name of education. But the truth cannot be suppressed. This incident in Patna has made it clear that in these modern Kurukshetras of education, the language of guns and stones is being spoken instead of knowledge. The government and the administration will now have to take such strict legal action against these coaching mafias without any pressure which can set an example, so that no other promising student of Bihar falls prey to this dirty commercial game.
(The Writer is a Senior Journalist and can be reached at <[email protected]>;Mob:- 9335566111)
