1. Home
2. Opinion

Clash of BJP's modern-medieval agendas

By Amulya Ganguli. Dated: 7/20/2017 10:54:50 PM

Education suffers as RSS dictates terms

The Narendra Modi government appears to be simultaneously moving in two opposite directions.
While the Union human resource development minister, Prakash Javadekar, wants to set up world class universities and allow students to work in reputed laboratories abroad before returning home to carry on their research, the Union minister for environment and science and technology, Harsh Vardhan, has said that scientists have been asked to verify the usefulness of the urine and dung of cows.
The minister said that personally he was convinced about the virtues of cow's milk (which will be accepted by all those who are not lactose sensitive) and of cow's urine, which is unlikely to be endorsed by those outside the saffron brotherhood. But he, nevertheless, wants a certificate from the scientists to convince a skeptical world. Cynics may say, however, that only a bold scientist will dare to tell the minister that what he believes is poppycock.
However, what cannot be ignored is the incongruity of world class universities, which are expected to adhere to rigorous academic discipline, coexisting with establishments which will examine the therapeutic properties of cow's urine and of panchgavya, a mixture of cow dung, cow urine, cow milk, curd and ghee or clarified butter - apparently a favourite dish of the Hindutva brigade.
It is such weird ideas which are behind the advisory issued by the ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) which tells pregnant women to avoid being lustful and stay off non-vegetarian food. Since the ministers are clearly guided by doctrines whose veracity cannot be guaranteed, it is not improbable that the teachers of the "world class" universities will regard the researchers dealing with the bovine products much as reputed doctors look upon those less qualified as quacks.
Arguably, therefore, Javadekar's plans may go up in smoke as the word spreads in international academic circles about the outlandish nature of the experiments being conducted in India, raising doubts about the possibility of distinguished educationists shifting their bases, even if temporarily, to the proposed groves of academe planned by the human resource development ministry.
The same reluctance may undermine the so-called VAJRA or Visiting Advanced Joint Research scheme under which members of the overseas scientific community will be invited to participate in R and D (research and development) projects in India. They, too, are unlikely to be interested in spending time in a country where bizarre theories abound not only in the scientific field, but also in other disciplines like history and social science where myths currently have the pride of place, replacing cold, hard, widely acknowledged theories established by acclaimed scholars after years of study.
For instance, one of the strange fables currently prevalent in social science run by an admirer of the prime minister, is that the caste system evolved because the Hindus ran away to the jungles to save themselves from the Muslim invaders and became scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in course of time by eating pork.
It is the gulf between what has been taught so far, and what the advocates of Hindutva believe, which has led to the shelving of the history course in the South Asian University which has been set up under the aegis of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation).
Since an invisible academic thread links all the educational institutions ranging from the arts and the humanities to science and technology, world class institutions cannot thrive in a country where there is high level of dissonance on a wide variety of subjects between established assumptions and the Hindutva lobby's assertions. Moreover, the lack of agreement is not based on reasoned discourses between different schools of thought, but is almost entirely political in nature.
The result of these vast differences in outlook has been that some universities have become virtual battlegrounds between the Left and the Right. It is obvious that in such a fraught atmosphere, the chances of world class universities emerging as oases of peace are minimal.
The clash between the two diametrically opposite political viewpoints has led to the meetings of the Indian science congress resembling a "circus", as the Nobel laureate, Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, said in the context of the airing of fanciful views about there having been aeroplanes in ancient India.
The government will have to make up its mind, therefore, as to whether it will choose the modern world or regress into medievalism with its compendium of religiosity and absurdity. One can also discern in this dichotomy a conflict between one section of the BJP which is in sync with the 21st century and another which continues to adhere to the kind of orthodoxy taught in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) shakhas.
The idea of setting up world class universities is laudable. But to achieve this objective, the government will have to brace itself for a complete break with the antediluvian landscape of the RSS. Otherwise, India will become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world when the wacky ideas of the BJP's mentor turn the educational fields into a waste land.
—(IPA Service)