By Praveen Chandhok
In recent days, social media has been abuzz with the clip of young Ishit Bhatt – a fifth-grade student who appeared on Kaun Banega Crorepati – and his rather arrogant demeanour towards the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. The episode has stirred a collective reaction: outrage, dismay, and criticism directed at the child and his parents. Yet, before we join the chorus, we must pause and ask – is the child’s behaviour truly an isolated incident? Or merely a mirror reflecting the everyday arrogance that pervades our society?
We live in an age where power and privilege have made many stop listening. Entitlement, not empathy, has become the mark of success. From corridors of power to classrooms and drawing rooms, egos swell easily, and humility has become a forgotten virtue.
Children, however, rarely invent arrogance – they inherit it. A child does not become impolite overnight; they absorb what they see and hear. Parents certainly shape the foundation, but a child’s moral compass is also influenced by the ecosystem around them – teachers, relatives, peers, even the manner in which adults converse in public spaces. Behaviour is contagious; values are environmental.
Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” That single line embodies the essence of wisdom – humility before the vastness of truth. Socrates believed that genuine wisdom begins when one acknowledges the limits of their knowledge. Those who assume they know everything, he said, are the ones who stop learning altogether.
The Upanishads echo this idea: “He who says he knows, knows not; he who says he knows not, knows.” Centuries later, Osho would put it beautifully: “We do not know where we come from, where we go, or who we are – yet our ego insists we know everything.”
In the 17th century, it was widely believed that mass education would bring enlightenment and peace. Two centuries later, when much of the Western world was indeed educated, DH Lawrence – the fiery English novelist and thinker – wrote a scathing essay, titled “The Education of the People” (1918). He declared: “All the universities, colleges, schools, and academies should be closed at once… they have done enough harm in turning out a generation of the damned, educated only to the machine.”
Lawrence wasn’t condemning learning; he was lamenting what education had become -mechanical, soulless, and conformist. He believed modern education was producing minds without blood – intellect without intuition, information without imagination. It was knowledge, not wisdom, that flourished.
Half a century later, Ivan Illich deepened that critique in his seminal work Deschooling Society (1971). He argued that schools had begun to equate education with certification, turning learning into a commodity. People began to believe that one could learn only within institutions, from certified teachers, rather than through curiosity and lived experience. In Illich’s view, schools were manufacturing obedience, hierarchy, and dependency – conditioning students to accept authority rather than question it. He warned that “more schooling” does not mean “more learning”. The tragedy, he said, lies in confusing degrees with depth and literacy with wisdom.
We now live in a world overflowing with knowledge – and starving for wisdom. We can access more data in a second than our ancestors could in a lifetime, yet we understand each other less than ever. Knowledge gives us power; wisdom teaches us restraint. Knowledge invents the bomb; wisdom asks whether we should drop it.
Perhaps the viral clip of a child’s arrogance is not about that one boy at all – but about all of us. About a culture that prizes being “right” over being kind, being “smart” over being wise.
Wisdom begins where arrogance ends. When we admit that we don’t know, we begin to learn anew. The path to true education – as Socrates, Lawrence, and Illich remind us – lies not in accumulation, but in awakening, not in instruction, but in introspection.
Let us teach our children – and ourselves – not merely to know, but to wonder.
(Praveen Chandhok is a Proud Josephite, Entrepreneur, Socialist and Writer.)
