Creating a generation of duds......

Recently I went through a very interesting article published in "Mumbai Mirror". It was about creating a generation of duds wherein the lower scores garnered by students in SSC was putting a question mark on the steps taken by the government to supposedly ease off the pressure from the students.
Well, I have survived 21 years of formal education and have faced the highs and lows both. From being a promising star at school to being a withered flower in engineering, I have seen the extreme ends of adulation and abjection. And it wasn't just me, there were many like me who have faced this heat and cold treatment. But eventually instead of breaking down we opted to bend down at times to finally standing up to the world, all strengthened and toughened up.
What's happening today is something I would call as ridiculously cheap humour. Studies were never hard to conquer. Neither were the balancing of sports, extra curricular activities and other social activities with studies hard to conquer. What has been hard forever in India to conquer is the narrow mentality of the society which takes a sadist pleasure in wreaking social and mental havoc in the lives of so called 'also rans'. A country with more than a billion population has place only for the one topper.
We all remember the neighbourhood aunties coming over and bragging about their children's achievements....well, i doubt if many of them were actually proud of their children, rather they were more interested in showing down the other's children. And even as parents how many times have you actually basked in your child's glory rather than being happy over the margin he has generated over others.
As a society we have had a habit of measuring the worth of our diamond by comparing its shine with the other, seldom appreciating the fact that each diamond is different and hence shines in its own way.
You bring in any amount of corrective measures Mr Sibal, but what you will end up doing is just pave the way for the creation of a generation of duds, simply because the society will never allow for the also rans to be seen of the same bench as that of the winners. It's the society that needs a correction, not the academics.
After all haven't you along with other men and women who have escorted India through its dark havens into the new world been a part of this or maybe a tougher curriculum ???