Cult classics, especially in popular culture, are defined as something – typically movies, books or even songs – that are popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of people. Even though cult classics are normally confined to, and defined by, a particular period in time, their resonance and relevance are always timeless. And few works of art – specifically in popular culture – could rival this inescapable timelessness of cult classics than Pink Floyd’s ageless anthem Another Brick in the Wall.
The song was first released in 1979, as part of the band’s album titled The Wall. Despite initial consternation at the lyrics, the song found immediate connection with the youth of the generation who could identify with the sentiments of the song. This trend has continued since then. Youth of all generations since The Wall has come to identify with this song, thus contributing to its enduring status as an ageless cult classic. The reference to this 1979 classic has been necessitated because of its famous call to “leave them kids alone”.
Clearly, though in a much different context, we have forgotten to leave the kids alone, judging on some very disturbing turn of events recently. It was only yesterday that the students of St Mary’s Montessori and Higher Secondary School in Dimapur staged a protest inside their school to display their disappointment at the state government’s baffling decision to use the school as one of the polling stations for the DMC elections.
Baffling because by choosing the school, the government was abandoning an older location of polling station used for more than 30 years. And also baffling because, the school authorities have already written to the government informing that it was due an inspection from the CBSE in the same week as the elections and that coaching classes for students set to appear board exams were already underway. The school complex also houses 18 families. Clearly, the school as well as the students stand to suffer from this arrangement.
It was in December last year that we were greeted to similar – if not same – scenarios. Not just once but twice. On both the occasions, one of the major political parties of the state had used the auditorium of a college in Dimapur to conduct the party’s functions. The first occasion was a programme in which the party inducted a former minister after he deserted his old party. Later in the same month, the same party held another programme at the same college’s auditorium to introduce intending candidates for the DMC elections to the party workers.
Schools and colleges are sacred institutions, not political theatres. Any political dispensation that fails to respect this distinction suffers from a form of incompetence. College auditoriums to induct political party members. And polling stations at schools set to receive board inspectors during the same period of time. Students with placards, asking for peaceful exams. Clearly, we have not left the kids alone!
