Educational facilities at Munnar

 Educational facilities at Munnar

The Britishers never wanted educated Indians at Munnar. They needed coolies, workers and staff to man offices, factories, workshop and fields. They were disinterested in furthering the careers of the natives. All they needed was dropouts from school to work as labourers and staff with abilities  - read and write - and proficiency to work basic arithmetics and nothing more.

They did start the High School there. They were running it well. But one headmaster, with selfish interests, encouraged the students to block the car of the General Manager. Angered, the GM as soon as he entered his office gave away the School and several houses occupied by the teachers to the Government for One Rupee. 

Naturally the students suffered. 

I left the school in 1965. In my clouded memory, I can recall two IAS officers and one doctor as former students of the school and nothing more. 

Poor parents had to struggle hard  to provide higher education to their children. And most of them had to spend literally all they earned for that. 

Later Tatas brought modern education within the grasp of the people there. But that was after 1975. We left Munnar in 1975.

It was Oommen Chandy who  opened the College at Munnar. An Engineering College followed. Notice how long it took for the authorities to learn that people at Munnar deserved minimum facilities at least..

If I remember right, John Hopkins University of USA wanted to set up a facility at Munnar. Our strong left who know everything opposed it tooth and nail. They wanted nothing of the bourgeois in Kerala. Disgusted, John Hopkins dropped the idea. Singapore welcomed them with both hands and John Hopkins flourishes there.

These days the left is after foreign universities to set shop in Kerala. 

What a travesty? Opportunities lost are lost for ever.

I am reading now, Animal Farm by George Orwell. It is allegorical. 

If anyone has time I'd advise you to read and reread it. You'll get an idea how autocracies take you for a ride and transform you to become their blind followers forsaking the truth