Reform by stealth – Indian education sector
Will he get education on his terms?
Reform by stealth
In the last 18 months, there has been a synchronized campaign to effect major ‘reform’ agenda into the Indian education sector. The suggested template is similar to what has been implemented in the telecom and automobile sectors with reasonable levels of success.
The underlying assumption seemingly, is that education is yet another ‘industry’. Hence, similar templates can be ‘imported’ from other ‘industries’ into the ‘education’ industry also. After all, it had earlier been imported into the film ‘industry’ with some success. While 2ndlook has no quarrel with ‘commercialization’ of education, short term safeguards for a sensitive sector like education maybe essential. Some features of this campaign create disquiet due to significant silence on some aspects and overheated discussions on some other aspects.
Backdoor privatization and hidden subsidies
The Vedanta industrial group is setting up a University in Orissa. From a campus at the new Lavassa township, Oxford is going to start offering courses. These and other represent the quiet backdoor ‘privatization’ of Indian higher education. NIIT, which pioneered computer education in India, is opening an university at Neemrana, Rajasthan.
Large tracts of lands are being acquired by the Government, and handed over for a pittance to the private sector. Soon, India will have competition between State subsidized English education – and private sector English education, subsidized by the State.
‘Private’ colleges vs ‘world class’ universities
Over the last 30 years, various state Governments in India have allowed private engineering and medical colleges to open up – and operate on a partially commercial basis. This colleges were first called ‘capitation’ colleges. Most of these colleges were fronts for the rich and /or powerful.
A banker contact pointed out, politicians are the only people who can swing the system. Private-sector colleges, can come up if ‘contacts’ and ‘influence’ are used to corner approvals, exemptions, land, licenses, permissions – and hence also the financing for these colleges. To make education into an extortion opportunity.
Pitted against a regime of money bags and power centres, is the new paradigm of ‘international’ standard, ‘world-class’ universities. These foreign universities will come to India – and give Indian students, ‘cutting edge’ education. Faced with a choice of extortionate ‘private sector’ against glossy ‘world-class’ universities, Indians are faced with an open-and-shut case.
But the case is not so simple or uni-directional.
Typical computer teaching shops
Indian software success
Indian software sector has built up a US$50 billion a year business, in less than 15 years. The Indian ramp up in software, from a software minnow to leadership status, happened in a short span of 15 years. These 50 billion dollars of software business has come out of (arguably) US pockets.
Indian private education can follow the software model. It was private sector Indian education system which sprang up in every nook and corner of the country. In millions of these ‘teaching shops’ software programmers were churned out. Without subsidy, without Government oversight, without regulation. Meeting the highest standards in the world.
How did this happen
The Y2K was predicted to be a major disaster – waiting to happen! The world waited with bated breath – for planes to crash; banks feared billion dollar frauds; army generals were afraid that defence systems would go on the blink. Indian software companies got Y2K contracts by truckloads.
The world piled on to Indian software companies – as there were few credible alternatives. The biggest of Fortune 500 companies entrusted the biggest software problem the world had, the Y2K problem, to the Indian software industry. Licked in less than 5 years time.
Come Y2k, nothing happened. The world over!
The Y2K meteor did not crash onto mother earth. It was just another day. It was the biggest triumph for the Indian software community. Done at a cost of a few billion dollars. By Indian software programmers. India did not celebrate this major success. Instead, they were hard at work, minimizing this success – as usual. (Instead they make a big deal of the 20:20 world cup).
Credit for India’s software success has many claimants – and all of them have had a role to play.
Any empty room became a computer centre!
How did software become such a big thing
Why is it that software became such a big thing in India? How could Indian engineers ramp up so quickly and tackle such a complex problem – with such low levels of prior exposure to computers? With the lowest computer penetration, how could India become the largest exporter of software in less than 10 years.
The historical advantage of Sanskrit (a tabular, artificial, data base language) does not explain the impossible build up in less than 10 years. Of capacity, training, infrastructure, investments, recruitment, user engagement, application mapping, stress points understanding, testing, et al required to tackle such a complex exercise.
Since the entire code of the industrial world (at least, the Anglo-Saxon world) was rewritten, it was similar to implementing a global computerization programme in 10 years. The new code written by Indian programmers could have crashed a 100 times – for reasons other than Y2k.
Poor application understanding to start with.
Government intervention
The dark cloud on ‘software success story’ is dominance of two countries. Actually, US and UK account for 70%-80% of Indian software business. Indian software industry does not get multi-lingual recruits who can address the Japanese, French, Spanish, Chinese, German software business opportunities.
The huge subsidy given by the Indian Government to English language in higher education has actually hobbled the Indian software industry.
Indian education needs a 2ndlook
India’s ‘indigenous’ education model
The software industry education system was not a new system. It was an pre-existing model – subterranean and invisible in official stats or mainstream media.
This Indian education model was, till about a 150 years ago, unique in the world. With the highest literacy ratio in the world, and completely privately funded, it set global and historic benchmarks. This model has been buried under a mound of silence – and once in a while you get a glimpse of this.
My first glimpse of this model was through the draft of Parag Tope’s recently released book – Operation Red Lotus.
The beautiful tree
Click on the photograph to access Sri Dharampal Gupta's book
Gandhiji, in correspondence with Sir Philip Hartog, (chairman of the Auxiliary Committee on Education), laid out the the pre-colonial scenario, which has now been buttressed by research by Dharampal, a Gandhian, in his book, Beautiful Tree, Indian Education in the 18th century.
I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished. (Gandhiji, at Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, Oct 1931 – extracted from Indian Models Of Economy Business And Management By Kanagasabapathi; Page 60).
At the grass roots level, India is struggling to recreate this system. James Tooley, an IFC-World Bank employee (for sometime), researched and wrote a book (funded by the Templeton Foundation), called The Beautiful Tree (what else did you expect?). Sreelatha Menon, a journalist reviewing Tooley’s book and research, seemingly, depends on Tooley’s own PR handouts to write an entire post in Business Standard.
Does she ever make a mention of Dharampal, whose work is the most authoritative today?
Between a rock and a hard place
Dharampal’s pioneering work, in 1983, has, not surprisingly, been ignored by the Amartya Sens and the Jean Drezes of the world – and all their avid followers in India. Kapil Sibal has been trying to further the colonial British efforts by laying out a red carpet for foreign universities – while tying up Indian institutions into-knots-into-knots-into-knots. The ‘modern’ theory about Indian education goes that all credit for Indian education should go either to the British Colonial Raj or the Christian Missionary Benevolence.
End of the road … the bankrupt model
The health care system in USA, social welfare entitlements of USA, employment benefits costs by UK, showcase projects of Japan are running countries into the ground.
India has, as yet, not gone down that path. Though, the Indian State has been trying – quite hard.
Crisis in Iceland
The major beneficiary of this policy by stealth is likely to be UK’s struggling education sector. The UK education sector significantly depends for upto 80% of its funds, from the State. UK’s universities are clearly struggling to stay afloat, hit by the ongoing economic recession and banking sector problems. An examination of UK’s education sector will reveal problems with this approach. British students are scrambling to rework their finances affected by decreasing ability of the British state to support education. British universities have ‘threatened’ to cut various study streams to cope with decreasing funding levels. Due to current recessionary trends and a contracting European economy.
A major hit to British Universities was the crisis in Iceland. And many British universities had their money stuck in a Icelandic banks, totalling some GBP77 million. Oxford had some GBP30 million in Icelandic banks. Cambridge followed with GBP 11 million.
Iceland had also presided over the fastest expansion of a banking system anywhere in the world. Little did anyone know that the expansion once so admired would go on to saddle the country with liabilities in excess of $100 billion – liabilities that now dwarf its gross domestic product of $14 billion.
Iceland overreached itself in spectacular fashion, and the party is coming to a messy end.
Looking at the mess in Australia, with Indian students and locals, British immigration authorities clamped down on foreign student applications.
Economics forced the British authorities to backpedal, as some 3,40,000 international students support the British education system with fees totalling to some GBP 8.5 billion). From China (50,000), India (20,000) Malaysia (10,000), Nigeria (12000), Pakistan (10,000) and other countries like Turkey (some 1,600 students).
UAE red carpet welcome to Western universities
The recent expansion of US universities in the UAE is instructive – and illustrative of the pitfalls. Faced with decreasing State support, shrinking student budgets and depleted teaching populations, reactionary local populations, US and struggling British universities are seeking to diversify out of their home countries.
What better choice than India?
The collapse of Dubai’s overheated economy has left the outposts of Michigan State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) struggling to attract enough qualified students to survive.
In the last five years, many US universities have rushed to open branches in the Persian Gulf, attracted by the combination of oil wealth and the area’s strong desire for help in creating a higher-education infrastructure. Education City in Qatar has brought in Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth. (via US university branches in Dubai struggling – Corporate News – livemint.com).
Vested interests
Long queues for education breeds complacency
Recently, the Government has taken another step towards ‘progress’ in Indian education sector.
The HRD ministry has decided to de-recognize as many as 44 “deemed universities”, spelling uncertainty for nearly two lakh students who are enrolled with them. The ministry’s decision amounts to an acknowlegement of irregularties in conferring the “deemed” tag to these institutions under the first UPA government in which Arjun Singh was the HRD minister.
These two lakh students (200,000) will add to the already over-burdened Indian higher education system. To see that this ‘de-recognition’ will create a ripe target for the new ‘world-class universities’ coming to India, does not need prescription lenses. With this preparation, international universities will find Indian ‘consumers’ sitting ducks – which they can pick off with their pea-shooters.
While all these policy formulations were being ‘crafted’, a well-oiled media campaign was unleashed. One such case was where Sanjeev Bikchandani (of Info Edge, which operates Naukri.com) and Jayant Sinha (of Courage Capital Management) wrote a pseudo-paper outlining ‘reform’ proposals for education in India.
Five points to perdition
These two writers feel, that Indian education ‘requires radical action in five key areas‘.
One – all Government controls must be scrapped. Two – Taxpayers must pay for scholarships. Three – private Indian and foreign universities must be allowed freely into India. Four – the tax payer (via the Government) must fund scientific and technical research. The fifth point (not clearly defined) that they probably make is that probably affirmative action should not be compulsory – but can be tied to Government funding.
Interesting.
What these two worthies pretend to address is the problem of the Indian education system. Instead, what they end up doing, is push forward the bowl in front of the Indian taxpayer – without pre-conditions. All that they are interested in, is addressing the problem of the English speaking elite. They don’t even pretend to address the problem of non-English speaking students.
Is it possibly, that the writers think it is below them, to attempt such ‘base’ ideas? Imagine addressing the problem of Maithili speaking students of Bihar or Telugu students from Rayalaseema! (Dont push me! I can be grosser still!!)
Of course, we should not expect them to talk about how nearly 800 years of violence against Indian education system must be reversed – and the Oriya student needs help more than the elitist English speaking student.
Of course, maybe I expect too much from them! Possibly my over-expectations make me fault them for not seeing the contradiction of allowing ‘foreign’ establishments to set up indoctrination and recruiting centers in India.
Blow up tax payer's money
Billing address
The Indian tax payer must subsidize the education of a privileged few. But the tax payer must NOT ask any questions or raise any queries or impose any agenda. The Indian tax payer must just quietly pay up and take whatever the English speaking elite dishes out.
For the last 60 years, the Indian tax payer has entrusted this English speaking elite with authority for setting the agenda in the Indian education sector – and the track record of this elite is obvious.
How many times do the writers mention Indian languages (vernacular, native, Indic, regional, etc.). Nil. How many times do they use the word exclusion, colonial, Westernized. Nil again.
Throwing money down the English education hole
But, they sprinkle their article liberally with Western examples like how, “In the US, the top 10-15 universities such as those in the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford and Chicago play a similar role”.
Even though India pioneered the system of reservation for the disadvantaged, and the US followed India by nearly 20 years, with their diluted system of ‘affirmative action’, these two worthies use the term affirmative action four times – and reservations (nil times).
While a weak case can be made out for funding education in India for a limited period, the ‘freeing’ that these worthies propose is interesting. Freeing. Umm! Who is likely to benefit from the ‘freeing’ that the two worthies propose? For the English speaking elite, I suspect.
3 Idiots - Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Star, director and producer of film 'Three Idiots' at Metro theatre on October 30, 2009. (BCCL/Deepak Turbhekar) 31 Oct, 2009
Idiots on idiots
At another level, there is yet another kind of ‘progress’ being made in the India education industry.
Indian educational success is being written off as rote learning. This rote learning, it is alleged hampers ‘innovation’. Critics of Indian educational practices support their argument with a thin statement like “you only have have to look at American ‘innovation’ to understand how rote learning hampers Indian students.”
Without ever looking how Indian coders rewrote the entire software of the American and UK corporates in a matter of 3-5 years during the Y2K problem. Or how Indian generics rule the world. Or how Indian pharma R&D is generating molecules for commercialization by better ‘endowed’ Western corporations. Or how Indian frugal engineering is developing world class products – at home, with Indian capital.
The most recent and egregious example of this is the Bollywood film, 3 Idiots, which encourages student laziness with delusions of genius. Behind the film is the book by the hallucinatory intellect of Chetan Anand. A supremely facile and baseless story, written without understanding either human epistemology or education.
Or the essential nature of the Indian. Indians are the most optimistic people on earth for the last 50 years of measurements. And they are also willing to work hard, very hard, to sustain and realize this optimism.
Penniless, landless, unlettered - but you gotta learn English (Landless labourers protesting against the SEZ in Raigard district. - PHOTO: MEENA MENON from The Hindu).
The Great Indian progress
The poor, landless labourer, remains poor and landless. Hardly any change. The only way he can get educated is, if he agrees to learn English!
The Indian State does not allow private sector into education – and denies the poor, education in the manner and medium that is useful to him. He is comfortable with.
Independent India – colonial practices
The Indian State today subsidizes English Language with billions of dollars – a policy that the British started in 1830. In the meantime, Indian language education systems have languished – and their survival is a credit to the Indian social strength.
English should immediately be deprived of all State support – and Indian language education system should be helped back on its feet. Privatization of education is the Indian way – back in history and way in the future.
2ndlook 
Do the Indians understand their business? I have been always skeptical about the IQ of these Macaulay’s children in the Indian peninsula. When a ruler is himself involved in a controversy, it is practically impossible to prove the situation and the guilt involved. Lord Macaulay and Lord Mountbatten are two heroes from the British who changed the entire history of this subcontinent for ever.
Pandit Nehru is said to have muttered in front of the then US Ambassador to India – Mr.
John Galbraith (1956) that I am the last English Prime Minister of India. This is all on record. But what is difficult to dig is, Lord Mountbatten’s letter to Clement Attlee where he is said to have written that if you give India Independence now, the Indians will be your slaves for ever. I do not vouch for its veracity, but the ground realities speak for itself.
Now let us recapitulate Lord Macaulay. After getting the concurrence of his Education policy by the Lord Bentinck on 7th March 1835, soon afterwards he wrote a letter to his father, “If my policy takes its shape, the Indians (Hindus) will be Indians by colour and looks but English in their hearts (Quoting off hand, not the exact words) in next 30 years. What a confidence and loyalty to his master – The English Crown.
Both these Lords has left a permanent dent on the minds and souls of the Indians. Malcolm Muggeridge is said to have observed later that the English (Raj) has caused not only material poverty to India but have left them mentally and spiritually bankrupt too. I could not agree more with him. Indians today are a walky-talky English cartoons or puppets without a soul. That is why I call the British – The Best Bania on this earth.
Did we learn our business from them. I believe, not even a fraction of a percent. If our PM became busy in Platonic Love and to prove himself a worthy Prime Minister to the English to ensure his “Peace Noble Prize” and a “dynasty rule”, what the poor massive illiterate Indians could do. On 2nd June 1947, Lord Mountbatten wanted to rush the agenda of partition of India, they cleverly excluded Mahatma Gandhi from that meeting. They all knew it that he will oppose such a move till his last breath. Thenafter, Gandhiji is said to have muttered to the people in the prayer meeting,”Now Jawahar lal will be your king from today, with a deep sigh of angst on his face”.
Nehru wanted to cut the head to get rid of the headache to enthrone himself the “King of the Crown” by superceding Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel and send Jinnah to his new exile in Pakistan. The first mistake was made. Gandhi was not interested in “Power struggle”.
That is why, I now say that Nathu Ram commited a mistake, not by firing his shot, but the choice of his target was wrong. I have read Nathu Ram’s Speech delivered in the Court, where even the judge had remarked,”Had it been a jury, you could have been exonerated, but I am a judge and my hands are tied”.
Today, India is not only poor, but panicked too due to the miserable condition of internal and external terrorism humiliatingly, without any choice. British sold their agendas and they still rule this subcontinent by proxy through the stupid Pakistani and Kashmiri weak link. Have we learnt our business? I think no.
This is why Margaret Thatcher had declined the Chinese offer,”If no administration, no business” during her negotiation of the colony of Hong Kong in the turn of the last century. The aim of administration has to be the conduction of the business of the state on whom the rest of the people depend for their all kinds of amenities. Do not forget, “Money” is the “Common” commodity to all your prosperity and to create this the method is “Business”. An American sociologist had remarked,”Without money, enen
the Vatican will not run for a day”.
The Indians need to learn to conduct their business better and the only way is to let the right man come to the right place and weed out corruption and nepotism. Are we ready for that? Our Delhi Babus should go to the 700,000 odd villages before formulating their national policies in stead of running to the US/UK to establish the Macaulay even deeper while the 80% people living in these villages clammer for basic amenities.
Half of these poor people still thrive on Rs. 20/ day as a family. Does it mean anything to these luxurious ministers, while the tax payer spends his good money in five figures at least in the security of these traitors. Do these scoundrels deserve it while all they are busy in is to swell the Swiss coffers. What a wastage of power and national resources?
The need of the hour is a silent contemplation and introspection at this most difficult time this nation is facing. Because someone else is making their business in our folly. I am sorry for a bit long post, but it is the need of the hour to raise the voice.
Dr. O. P. Sudrania
One of the best artical on so called education reforms. Must help to open the eyes of our ‘elite’ reformers. Tyranny can not defeat the power of ideas and Mr Sibal and his team need to understand this.
minor quibble. i believe you are being a little uncharitable towards Tooley.-not sure if you read his book at all. Tooley not only acknowledges Dharampal, but also digs out the records of east india company themselves to conclude that there existed a bottoms-up private student fees and philanthropy funded school system before Macaulay or even Munro(monroe?) who introduced the centrally planned education system that still persists in india ,with babus directing what the indian in jhujhunu should teach his child.
tooley also unearths the fact that more indian kids have,inspite of govt efforts to denigrate or outright abolish them,attend private schools -not the ones the urban elite attend -but the ones in slums and bylanes which provide accountability to parents and surprisingly affordable fees. note:sibal has decided to ban them all,unless they provide “infrastructure” including playgrounds.thats classic central planning for you.
Pravin –
Where have I been critical of Peter Tooley? I doubt if Peter Tooley needs me to be charitable towards him.
🙂
My concern is Sreelatha Menon. Her eulogizing Peter Tooley – without mentioning Shri Dharampal Gupta is bad journalism.
Sreelatha Menon is following the Western construct of White Man’s Burden!
In modern era you see it in Avataar (Western man saves the mystical East); The Last Samurai (Western man values and saves the code of the Samurai) or The Man named Horse (Western man rides with the ‘Red Man’ to save him).
I have a feeling that soon Peter Tooley may be seen as ‘the man, THE Expert’ who ‘discovered’ the Indic model of education!
Peter Tooley had greater access to PR, money and technology compared to Shri Dharampal Gupta – and his building on Dharampal’s work cannot be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Excellent post… but I also have a minor quibble – about 3 Idiots.
I was actually surprised that you viewed the movie as something that implicitly views the Indic education in bad light…
Critiquing the IITs and other “elite” institutions for churning out “well trained” circus animals that can perform “miracles” (or rape 😉 is being critical of modern Indian education – that’s hardly being critical of “Indic” education.
Yes – he criticizes learning by rote. And the word “rote” probably is derived from sanskrit रट्टणम्. And रट्टणम् played an important part in the shruti elements of Indic knowledge. But – it was only an element. None of the logic, mathematics, philosophical and abstract elements could be taught be rote. There were several verbal tools that existed that helped memorize things… but – logic and argumentation – which were the key to Indic knowledge – were hardly things that could be taught by memorization.
Post 1835 – once Indic education was dismantled – what returned was a frankenstinian version of education – that had to meet English requirements combined with an elitist Indian system that was unscalable… post 1947 – the Indian government has worked hard in preventing pre Macaulayan Indic education to return….
Going back to 3 Idiots… I did not see any hints of supporting the “progressivist” agenda that modern liberals are obsessed with… the character MM who is shown to be a rough and tough street kid – who in Rancho’s school grows into CM, a young man who speaks eloquently…. in Hindi… the directors could have easily shown this “progress” that this young man made in his life because of Rancho – by simply showing him speaking English… because that is what we are told is “progress”… but they didn’t. He speaks an Indian language… but more eloquently… and implying that as an improvement – I see that the makers of the film were not seduced by the maya of “progress.”
Also – the last scene on the beach in Ladakh – where Rancho is flying the toy plane with the kids – he briefly speaks – to the kids in what sounds like a Ladakhi language… again – could not have been accidental.
Yep – no accident… looks like the character of Phunsuk Wangdu was inspired by Sonam Wangchuk…
http://www.mid-day.com/specials/2010/jan/030110-idiot-phunsuk-sonam-play-mumbai.htm
Makes a case for why teaching in Ladakhi is better than teaching in Urdu…
…I wonder why there aren’t more people making this case for Indian languages in favor of English?
Seems like I need to 2ndlook at the 3 Idiots
Bravo, Anuraag Sanghi. But also, bravo, Galeo Rhinus. I think that the morphing of Shruti-based “rote learning” into “empire-clerk-producing” rote learning is the remarkable tragedy. And history repeats as farce, when the last Englishman PM, with a country in the the throes of partition, speaks eloquently about our tryst with destiny for all anglo-philes to applaud to this day (Rushdie includes it in his anthology). Why was he so keen to show off? Anglophile slave mentality. It continues with his daughter, her son, and his widow, son & daughter.
It infects Shyam Benegal, a patriot – who makes Bharat Ek Khoj – from the confused narratives in Nehru’s Discovery of India. In fact, the TV serial looks very Indian, very authentic! Who would suspect the falsehoods on which it is based?
It infects V.S. Naipaul – his 3 books on India should actually be called Area of Darkness Vol I, II and III. What eloquence in the self-loathing! And he is feted by the likes of L.M. Singhvi and Farukh Dhondi! His comments “Gandhi has no relevance to India” and “Vinoba Bhave is a mimic Gandhi” are taken as prophetic statements of our pygmy-ness.
It infects Salman Rushdie – “All great literature in post-independent India has been produced in English”. It infects Arundati Roy – for whom Adi-vaasis are India’s aboriginals, despite there being no genetic differences between them and “Aryans” Calling them Van-vaasis is supposed to be derogatory – like saying Junglees!
Does it infect Amartya Sen as well? Was paaNini an Afghan? Ho ho ho.
Does it infect me and you? The metaphor that comes to mind now is “The evil that men do lives on after them…”
I do think that the Anglophile destroyers are somehow our karmic fruit.
Galeo – Talking of 3 Idiots –
I did finally take a serious 2ndlook!
And guess what I misread the movie. It is everything you say it is – and not what I read into while watching it in snatches!
So .. aal I can say is aal is well
Naras –
Yes … the move from “immersion” based learning to rote learning continues to this day! It is not a coincidence that at the dawn of Kaliyug Parikshit’s guru was Shukacharya!
Shuka in Sanskrit means parrot!
It is good that Saraswathi has been rediscovered in two important ways. The first, the river, finds mention in your archaeology pieces about the Saraswati Basin culture whose towns and villages are being investigated. The second, is about knowledge and learning and what the British plan for influencing the native educational systems did to them.
There is no doubt that if you look at the last decade – not any period longer than that ( history can have long epochs! ) – the fast access to comparison data is playing an important role. e.g. the Internet helps you to search for information updates from all parts of the world and Babel-fish and such utilities help to transliterate a page in non-English alphabets. In that sense, the English language helps in having a quick access. But to do your own thinking, construct theory, record observations etc. – this has little to do with a particular language.
Secondly, reading social science and history in a foreign language, with works mainly from authors of other races, isn’t the most recommended way. Objectivity is hard to come by, in any case. The tendency to instinctively, and un-understandingly respect a US/UK author more, or accord him/her an authority status, alas, needs a lot of esteem-building to overcome.
There are innumerable mediocrities waiting to closely ape what they see a western magazine do, to follow their programme formats, that there is no hope for them, as a commentator says here in the blog comments.
But, in these dried-up beds, and changed paths of the stream of knowledge, some drilling will help. Just as 50 metre tubewells in the 20th century showed clear water in the Saraswati river’s erstwhile course.
Oases will spring amidst the dreary sands of dead habit, and a heaven of intellectual freedom (by shaking off the multiple yokes) will be realised.
Without defining for itself what “knowledge” is, without its own standards and means for validation, without developing its own training methods, without its own quests for generating new knowledge, without its own mechanisms to direct new knowledges towards application – a culture cannot be creative or be a power. It can be a satellite only.
Calibre – both intellectual and of self-confidence – is required in huge amounts to be a leader in knowledge realms. We have to accord greater recognition to intelligentsia and not only garland those who have been feted by the West.
But forgetting the shallowness of the many, it remains to be seen what the cognoscenti and the geek brains and the grey materialists of the country can do to improve their standing, build confidence in native sensibilities and intelligence, and collaborate effectively to enhance the country’s standing on the honours podium of knowledge leadership.
Brilliant Article mate. Let’s hope that there is more competition in providing education to the masses. I don’t know how this will happen and i know hope is not a strategy. But I don’t know what I as an individual can do other than what my friend is doing, i.e. teaching science to under privileged kids off his own resources in their own language. All I can do is that much. Hope it is correct. and if it is correct, hope others follow.