When Literature Leaves the Classroom, Civilization Forgets Itself

By : vikram jena

There was a time in Odisha when literature did not merely occupy the classroom it inhabited the conscience. A child in a modest government school, seated on a wooden bench under a slow-moving fan, encountered the world not through screens but through sentences. Words were not information; they were initiation. Stories were not syllabus; they were shaping forces. Literature was not a subject; it was a moral architecture.

Today, we must ask with philosophical seriousness: Has the degradation of society begun with the absence of great literature in our time? And if so, who is responsible for this erosion, the state, the system, the writers, the teachers, or the readers themselves?

The Literature That Raised Us

In the Odia medium classrooms of the past, texts were not accidental. They were curated with civilizational intention. We read about the humanitarian life of Albert Schweitzer - introduced to us in Odia as “Durgata Manabara Bandhu.” Through him, we learned that service to the suffering is not charity but moral obligation. We read of Dharamapada, the legendary child artisan of the Konark Sun Temple, whose sacrifice was not simply historical folklore but an allegory of devotion to craft and collective honor.

We encountered the innocence of childhood tales like “Sana Sina Dana Ta Mahaan,” and we learned scientific nutrition through narratives like “Kandhei Sabha” — milk and protein explained not as sterile facts but as living necessity. In Standard III, science fiction ignited imagination; in lessons like “Diasili,” we understood that necessity is the mother of invention. Even cyclones were not disasters in abstraction but phenomena explained with poetic curiosity.

By Class V, the moral universe deepened. “Pitrubhakti” instilled reverence toward parents not as authoritarian obedience but as gratitude. That unforgettable line “Batsa Bhitabachita Sankuchita Hua Nahi Kathor Kartabya Nikatare Bhai Bhagini Kahari Stana Nahi” was more than rhetoric. It was a discipline of duty over emotional comfort. It taught us that responsibility is not selective.

We dreamed of development through stories of Paradeep Port envisioned by Biju Patnaik. We traveled across India through chapters on states, languages, festivals, and cultures. Geography was not memorization; it was integration. India became a mosaic before it became a map.

In Classes VI and VII, “Paduka Puja” revealed the divine fraternity of the Ramayana; Santali festivals opened the door to indigenous rhythms; “Grama Patha” narrated rural solidarity; “Astamita Surya” and “Stimita Godhuli” captured existential dusk; Golak Bihari Dhala’s imagination in “Himalaya ra Himachaya Tale Masoori” painted landscapes not merely scenic but spiritual.

These texts fictional and non-fictional constructed maturity. They connected village to nation, science to morality, imagination to responsibility. They built a moral ecosystem.

The Collapse of Literary Ecosystem

What then has gone wrong in contemporary society and its literature?

First, literature has been replaced by content. Content is consumable; literature is contemplative. Content informs; literature transforms. The contemporary classroom, increasingly standardized and market-driven, treats language as a skill for employment rather than as a medium for ethical imagination.

Second, writers themselves are fewer in moral ambition. The literary public sphere has shrunk. Where are today’s stories that speak to rural resilience, indigenous cosmology, brotherhood beyond caste, and dignity beyond wealth? Much of contemporary writing oscillates between shallow romanticism and fashionable nihilism. It neither heals nor interrogates deeply.

Third, readers have been vacuumed by distraction. The digital age fragments attention. A civilization that once listened to epics for nights now scrolls for seconds. The crisis is not technology; it is unmediated excess. Without literary discipline, attention dissolves, and with it, depth of character.

Fourth, the state’s bureaucratic imagination has narrowed education into metrics. Examination-oriented syllabi suffocate aesthetic risk. Curriculum committees often operate without philosophical vision. Literature is reduced to comprehension exercises; poetry to annotation; moral lessons to bullet points.

As Odisha approaches the centenary of its formation as a separate linguistic state in 1936, the crisis becomes civilizational. Language is not merely communication; it is collective memory. When literature weakens, language thins; when language thins, identity fractures.

The Moral Depression of School Education

You rightly observe that contemporary school education appears morally depressed  mentally and behaviorally. This is not an exaggeration. When literature ceases to cultivate empathy, students become efficient but not ethical. They may master formulas but struggle with fraternity. They may pass competitive exams but fail communal responsibility.

The tragedy is not intellectual incapacity but emotional undernourishment.

Earlier textbooks embedded interconnectedness. A lesson on agriculture led to respect for farmers; a poem on dusk inspired ecological sensitivity; a biography of a humanitarian stirred civic responsibility. Today’s fragmentation subject silos, hyper-specialization, coaching culture detaches knowledge from life.

The Forgotten “Robin Hood” Teachers

In this decline, one group deserves acknowledgment: low-paid government school teachers, the “Robin Hood” educators of rural Odisha. With limited resources and modest salaries, many of them continue to carry the moral weight of classrooms. They often live among their students, understand their families, and invest emotionally in their growth.

Contrast this with certain university environments where research has become ritualistic, degrees transactional, and teaching mechanical. Not all, but enough to create concern. The distance between professor and society has widened. The university, ideally a site of intellectual rebellion and moral clarity, sometimes risks becoming bureaucratic machinery.

If foundational teachers sustain moral imagination while advanced institutions drift into careerism, the imbalance is alarming.

Literature as Civilizational Infrastructure

We speak of infrastructure in terms of highways and ports. But literature is civilizational infrastructure. It shapes the interior highways of conscience. It builds bridges between self and society. Without it, economic development becomes hollow.

The dams, ports, industries, all necessary, cannot replace the inner architecture formed by stories of sacrifice and fraternity. A society rich in minerals but poor in moral imagination risks becoming materially prosperous yet spiritually impoverished.

Consider how epics, folk tales, and modern narratives once functioned as ethical rehearsal spaces. Through characters like Dharamapada or the brothers of the Ramayana, children rehearsed loyalty, courage, and restraint. Through poems of nature, they internalized ecological humility. Through biographies of reformers, they learned service.

Where are such rehearsals today?

Government, Bureaucracy, and Accountability

It is tempting to blame only voters or parents. But systemic responsibility rests significantly with policy-makers and bureaucrats. When curriculum reforms prioritize standardization over soul, when language promotion becomes ceremonial rather than substantive, decline accelerates.

Language departments require autonomy and funding. Literary awards must reward depth, not proximity to power. Translation initiatives should carry Odia literature globally while bringing global classics into Odia classrooms. Public libraries must be revitalized as community centers, not dusty archives.

Accountability must extend beyond literacy rates to literary richness.

Reimagining the Future

As we approach one hundred years of linguistic identity, we must ask: What kind of Odia literature will greet the centenary? Will it be vibrant with philosophical courage, or diluted by administrative convenience?

Reform must occur at multiple levels:

The Philosophical Question

At its heart, this crisis is philosophical. What is education for? Employment alone? Or ethical formation?

If literature disappears from the bloodstream of society, democracy becomes procedural rather than principled. Citizenship shrinks to voting; responsibility evaporates. The distinction between right and duty blurs. People no longer ask what they owe to society; they ask only what society owes them. Literature once answered that silently. It whispered that duty precedes demand.

Conclusion: A Call to Reawaken

The degradation of society is not inevitable. It is reversible. Civilizations renew themselves through conscious return to foundational values.

Odisha’s literary heritage is not dead; it is dormant. It awaits revival through collective will writers who dare to think deeply, teachers who continue to inspire, administrators who prioritize language, and citizens who rediscover reading not as examination preparation but as existential nourishment.

When children once read about humanitarian doctors, sacrificial artisans, fraternal devotion, and ecological beauty, they internalized interconnectedness. That interconnectedness is the antidote to fragmentation. As the centenary of our linguistic state approaches, the question is not whether literature is declining. The question is whether we possess the courage to restore it.

If we fail, future generations may inherit industries and highways but lose the inner compass that tells them why they exist.

And a society without compass, however prosperous, drifts. Let us choose instead to anchor ourselves again in words that build worlds.