Critical consciousness begins from the mind, initially as an intersection between the mind and intellect and later takes on the intellectual faculty bestowed on the human being alone, to drive the mind to greater heights. The knowledge innate to consciousness is the only reliable teacher, so say spiritual masters.Paulo Freire’s critical approachBrazilian Educator and multi-cultural activist Paulo Freire and author of the all-time classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed delves into critical consciousness and delineates an innovative educational experiment rooted in a new relationship between the teacher, student and society on the broad canvas of social change.Freire, exiled from his native country for 15 years – first to Uruguay and then Chile where he spent four long years, his formative period – finally landing in Harvard with a teaching assignment, flourished in exile with his contribution to ideological pedagogy which he capsuled in his memorable work in the shape of Dialogics where he described the essence of education as “the practice of freedom”.Freedom to think, and to observe and analyse critically, thus became the narrative for Freire. While in Brazil he mobilised the peasantry, transforming his pedagogy from a banking model of education, where the learner, deemed as an empty vessel, “piggy bank” as he called, becomes instead a co-creator of knowledge and thus a harbinger of social change. The countryside of Brazil, which he toured extensively for creative application of his pedagogical methods, rose up as a liberating force until he was forced out of his own country as a pariah.Freire’s contextual thesis of annihilating the conformist superstructure at its origin and instead letting the system develop into a silent, yet innovative, transformation through the process of consciousness of all participants to challenge injustice and deprivation deserves understanding.His approach has been described as the boldest experiment ever in bringing education to the grassroots and developing the agency and outreach of the restive minds with confidence and fortitude to address societal problems. In this, both the learner and the teacher become active participants while the society becomes the theatre for their actions.Freire’s works in their universalisation express a mature analysis of the political nature of education that places literacy and critical education in the struggle of the oppressed to go beyond neo-capitalist expression, and towards a radical transformation in the process of education.Suppression of dissentIn contemporary times when dissent is suppressed, activism is punished, institutions are sabotaged and constitutionalism takes a back-seat. With hatred and bigotry riding roughshod in societies around, the silver bullet is easy to lose. When patience frays and otherness become the new normal it is through critical thinking and action alone that the society can be salvaged. That, through a broad array of transformative motifs, in urban areas, rural shanties and the borderlands of despicable living, while the ivory towers of brilliance lie couched in an aloof coldness towards any kind of proactive takeover. The latter needs to be galvanised in a spirit of voluntary co-option.Note that the hubs of transformation in the details of Leh, Kathmandu, Dhaka or Colombo could engulf like a prairie fire and the only means to bring about sanity would be in thinking and acting sagely which can only come from a self-critical and democratic spirit. The places above conform to a systemic deterioration arc running across a broad swathe of societies which inversely initiate young volatile minds persuaded by the tech spirit to form mass movements and embolden them to form networks of the willing prepared to restructure societies at the cost of their sweat and blood.Gramsci and Arendt’s critical analysisItalian Marxist Antonio Gramsci postulated that the struggle to tackle the dominance of the ruling class was as much a cultural battle as a revolutionary one. Advocating that the state must be concerned as an educator, he nevertheless argued that no government, regardless of how powerful it was, could sustain its control by force alone. The state instead would in the nature of things privilege intellectuals who dare to paradoxically challenge the process.German philosopher Hannah Arendt, who witnessed the trial of Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, stated that atrocities committed by the Third Reich had gone beyond the evil character of the actions perpetrated and people like Eichmann were only following the orders of the Fuhrer rather than acting out of an innate hatred for the Jews, her famous theory of “Banality of Evil”. It also attested to the fact that evil does and must end one day. Paradoxically, the same people who were persecuted once have been today declared committing genocide on humanity by the courts of law which have sadly turned into paper bodies.Strength of educationEducation could be an effective remedy to fix societal aberrations. Public intellectuals must emerge out of self-imposed hibernation to contribute to national development and stop acting as “nationalists” in tune with the dictates of the regime. Ambedkar’s timeless slogan, “Educate, agitate and organise” should inspire them to regain their agency and cerebral worth to herald an organic change in the society they live.The scale of the task on hand is immense and pooling of all resources is critical to address the challenge. It is essential therefore to sift development from publicity emanating from decadent practices. For instance, the draft Learning Outcomes Based Curriculum Framing released by the University Grants Commission treats Indian knowledge systems as one-dimensional, constituting an epistemic challenge to the diversities of theories, opinions and even histories of the sub-continent.This exclusivist knowledge would stifle young minds, imperil the ethics of peace and nonviolence and tilt them in a different and dangerous direction. The panacea lies in cultivating criticality for questioning at the street corner, the market place and the class room, and demanding answers from those who are mandated to be accountable.The state has to remain engaged in the pursuit of social and economic justice for the teeming aspirational masses and cannot make them the victims of a neo-capitalist economy breeding rising levels of inequality and distress. As Freire says,” We need to say no to the neo-liberal fatalism that we are witnessing, informed by the ethics of the market… I embrace history as possibility where we can demystify the evil in this perverse fatalism that characterizes the present discourse”. Freire’s voice, snuffed out at the end of the last century, could be apocryphal in the current context.Dr. Malay Mishra is a former diplomat and educator.