In the blissful era of quiet before the mobile phone — it did exist — parents, policemen and policymakers must have had a much lighter workload. Now the seething dynamics around the intimate little gadget are throwing up ever new areas of concern, from its voyeuristic pictures to its uses for terrorism. The latest concern for the human resource development ministry is the use of mobile phones on college and university campuses. It is pondering the pros and cons of allowing higher education institutions to use jammers to block phone signals. The government, which could be imagined to have rather pressing matters at hand, seems to think that using its unmatched powers to bear down on a bunch of ill-mannered students, who don’t know any better, is a priority. Against this assumption of power, the apparent ineffectuality of college and university authorities, who seem to be unable to deal with students’ bad manners, is rather striking. They may rightly feel that mobiles disturb the class or distract a student; all they need to do is forbid it and penalize those who refuse to comply. If monitoring rather than technology is good enough for schools, as the HRD ministry seems to feel, why are jammers required when the students are older? It is a part of socialization in young adulthood to learn when not to use a disruptive mobile phone. Jamming in this case is typical of the heavy-handedness that is intrinsic to the Indian attitude towards the young. But jamming cannot extend to hostels, because that is where most ragging takes place. This contradiction is enough to expose the absurdity in thinking. Coercion changes nothing, only training and awareness do — but learning this simple lesson will not only deprive policymakers of most of their task-lists, but also of much of their sense of power.

Yet, contrary to this throwback to medieval authoritarianism, there is now a scheme to make high-quality education accessible to a greater number of students throughout the country by online teaching. The national mission on education through information and communication technology aims to allow students to address questions to specific teachers in other institutions. As an idea it is brilliant, although it will entail computerizing all the departments of all higher education institutions in the country. It would also entail persuading busy professors to be accessible. If they are to be paid, how would that work? And if payment is not part of the scheme, will it be dependent on the well-worn appeal to the nobility of the teacher’s profession?

What is fascinating is the ad hoc quality in the thinking about education. While students leapfrog into academic excellence by, presumably, accessing the best professors online, their mobiles are to remain jammed because they do not have enough sense to know when not to use them. It is unnerving to speculate on the kind of young citizen that the government imagines — should it have imagination — the country should produce.