Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra on Thursday in his replies in the state assembly revealed something he called “unfortunate”. He said crime in Karnataka was increasing despite education and financial status improving.
Better education and financial status ideally leads to better well-being. If that is to be believed then crime should have been on the decline. But that is not what seems to be happening here.
Crime cases filed under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2020 were 1,04,931. It rose to 1,14,024 in 2021; 1,27,415 in 2022; and 11,184 in January 2023 alone. There were 10,738 cyber crime cases in 2020, which dropped to 8,132 in 2021; rose to 12,551 in 2022; and 1,325 in January.
What may be required here is uplifting education to justify it as “education” and not merely ensuring absorption of knowledge to measure quality of literacy. Intelligence and knowledge in action is wisdom. Education gains its full meaning only when the former two play out in tandem to churn out wisdom. If crime is on the rise, as the minister pointed out, then where is wisdom? Has education really improved in the state, or is it just ‘knowledge’ through the exercise of one’s ‘intelligence’?
Plain and simple: If crime is on the rise, education — despite the claims about its improvement — is not improving, but actually degrading. If more people are engaging in crime, then education has failed. Cyber crime is a classic example here. The perpetrator may have used his intelligence and gained the knowledge to commit the crime, but where does education and wisdom find space in it?
Most crimes are those committed in pursuit of quick money, and loads of it. Money means wealth, property, luxury and affluence. Behind all these is the pursuit of social acknowledgement (read ‘social status’), the means used to gain it notwithstanding.
Greed-crime perpetrators crave it riding on feelings of deprivation that tends them to feel relatively isolated, even victimized. Famous 19th century French writer Honore de Balzac wrote, “Man looks for a companion of his fate. In order to satisfy his drive…he applies all his strength, all his power, the energy of his whole life. Would Satan have found companions without this overpowering craving?”
This is an increasingly competitive world. The cut-throat competition delivers the dog-eat-dog culture. One compares one’s own possessions and achievements with those of the others. The tendency to move into the fast lane to make it big in the shortest possible time becomes irresistible to many. If crime is on the rise, it’s an indication that this tribe is on the increase. Consideration of whether the means to the end are criminal or not get side-stepped.
Mitch Albom in his famous book Tuesdays With Morrie, cites his old professor Morrie Schwartz, who wondered how people get brainwashed into all this: “They repeat something over and over again…More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good … We repeat it — and have it repeated to us — over and over until nobody bothers to think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what’s really important anymore.”
Maybe, if we get a precise understanding of what ‘education’ is, and how different it is from ‘literacy’ and ‘gaining knowledge’, besides the value of ‘wisdom’, things would turn for the better.
Alvin Toffler, American writer and futurist, who extensively wrote on the impact of digital and communication revolution on cultures, hit the nail on the head: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
nirad Mudur
Deputy Resident Editor, Karnataka
niradgmudur@newindianexpress.com