Evil by whose standards?

Victory over evil?
Burning effigy of 10 headed Ravana on Vijayadashami.

Now, what is education and what is it to be learned? Is it the ability to regurgitate in verbatim what is written by page and chapter without actually understanding what is written or recited? Or is it the ability to understand that there may be two sides of the coin and allowance must be given to an alternative perspective to what has been accepted as the truth without batting an eyelid?

I do not think that one becomes stupid or is a trouble maker by questioning what seems to be a no-brainer.

Year in year out the effigy of Ravana is burnt with so much pomp and vigour to signify the win of good over evil with the help of the Gods. Ravana is painted in hideous hues and is vilified as the epitome of everything that is evil on Earth. After fasting and praying for 9 days to signify the greatness of the matriarchal forces of Nature, devotees celebrate their victory of staying true to their endeavour by symbolically burning something that is synonymous with evil. Who is going to argue? The scriptures innumerates the numerous misdeeds done by Ravana, the Demon and his equally demonic sister. They were accused of upsetting the tranquility of Rama's exiled household.
But then... History is written by the victors...

The remnants of the untold history of the losers insist that Ravana indeed was a cultured emperor of 10 kingdoms as well the one who had mastered the knowledge of 10 holy scriptures. The 10 heads in his representation of him is the symbolism of his supposed grandiosity. He was an intelligent physician, a talented musician (veena player) and devout Shiva devotee. His subjects enjoyed peace and prosperity under his rule. Poverty was unheard of. Even peasants in his rule used golden utensils in their daily household usage! - so they say.

Even today, he is hailed as a hero, a demi-god and is worshipped in many parts of India. Temples and statues had been erected in his name in northern and southern parts of India. 

They assert that the whole bad publicity came about because of vested interest of certain superpowers over the other. Ravana is said to be the last of defiant kings who resisted the hegemony of aliens or invading forces from the North. Or was it another deathly clash between Vaishnavites and Shaivites?

Again and again history is re-written to justify the tyranny of the victors and to put them in a better light.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/ravana-is-a-hero-for-sinhala-nationalists/article1-249335.aspx

... used the Ramayana to radicalise the Tamils in southern India against Brahminical supremacy and the domination of North Indian Sanskritic culture. For him, Rama, Sita, and all the rest of them were northerners without "an iota of Tamil culture", but Ravana, the king of Lanka or southern Tamil Nadu, was a Tamil.

Periyar E.V. Ramaswami