It is truly a privilege and an honour to speak at the 150th anniversary of Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya, one of the leaders in building modern India. He came at a time of transition, a period I did some reading on as he was also on the Board of Trustees of Hindu College, Delhi University for the first ten years after its founding in 1899. Historians have analyzed the forces at work after the uprising of 1857. It was a period of turmoil. While the uprising of 1857 may have been seen as a ‘mutiny’ by many British parliament and English writers, Disraeli, speaking in the House of Commons on July 27, 1857, was quite clear that it, “was a national revolt and not a military mutiny,” recalls Tara Chand in History of the Freedom Movement in India (Vol. II).
He also points out that Justin McCarthy had said,
“The fact was that throughout the greater part of the north and northwest of the great Indian Peninsula there was a rebellion of the native races against English power. It was not by any means a merely military mutiny. It was a combination of military grievances, national hatred and religious fanaticism against the English occupation of India. The native princes and native soldiers were in it. The Mohammedan and the Hindoo forgot their old religious antipathies to join against the Christian.”
So the root of nationalism was planted at that time itself. Post 1857, the British Empire got firmly established as India came under the direct rule of the British Crown in 1858 but the counter movement of determination to be an independent country in spite of the 1857 defeat got strengthened.
The events of 1857, however, left a scar. One was heightened religious consciousness that was divisive. Divisions developed not only between Hindus, Muslims, and Christians but also among the orthodox Hindus, Arya Samajis and the Jains. The British contempt for Indians, their religion and their culture did not help matters. Apart from the missionary propaganda, many civil and military officers, too, seemed to behave like evangelists. For example, Rev. M. Edmond issued a circular letter from Calcutta in which he stated:
The time appears to have come when earnest consideration should be given to the subject, whether or not all men should embrace the same religion. Railways, steam vessels and the electric telegraph, are rapidly uniting all the people of the earth. Christian religion is the only religion, which claims to have come from god by way of direct revelation. This is the only religion, which can confer happiness in the world and in the other world whose conditions are revealed by it. It is our wish to see the churches filled with Indians, where not only foreigners but the people of the country also will proclaim regularly the good news of the Christian gospel and where men and women will be required to seek repentance from their sins and to prepare themselves for meeting god; and where children will be taught morality and truth.
Such an attitude tended to be counter productive as it led to the desire to defend Hinduism and to strengthen it especially among the educated Hindus. It brought together like-minded influential leaders of Indian societywho thought of setting up institutions that could rise above narrow sectarian interests, serve the cause of nation building and provide education on the lines of Sanatana Dharma while combining it with the best in western scientific methods. This they felt would provide “a broad liberation of mind and religious spirit” and this was the thought and vision that lay behind the establishment of Banaras Hindu University as behind Hindu College in Delhi.
By 1890 organizations such as the Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and the Theosophists had heightened their activities. These movements made such good progress that a National Conference was held in 1900 in Delhi under the presidency of the Maharaja of Darbhanga. The aim was to unite the various Hindu organizations and this led to the formation of the Bharata Dharma Mahamandala in 1902 with Pt. Din Dayal Sharma as its Secretary. He played an important role in the establishment of the Banaras Hindu University and was also one of the first trustees of the Hindu College Education Society in Delhi.
It is notable that education was one of the important objectives of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandala because of the serious apprehensions caused by the proselytising activities if the missionaries especially through the mode of education. The stated objects of the Mahamandala were to:
- promote Hindu religious education in accordance with the Sanatana Dharma, to diffuse the knowledge of the Vedas, Smritis, Puranas and other Hindu Shastras and to introduce, in the light of such knowledge, useful reforms into Hindu life and society;
- promote and enrich Sanskrit and Hindi literatures in all the branches;
- introduce such useful reforms as may be warranted by the Shastras in the management of the Hindu charitable and religious institutions and tirthas, that is, sacred places;
- establish, affiliate and control Branch Sabhas in different parts of India;
- support the existing Hindu colleges, schools, libraries and publishing establishments, and found new ones in consonance with the object of the association.
This period also saw an increase in commercial activities, and with it came “the extension of the means of communication and transport, large increase in India’s foreign trade and modernization of India’s economy….” India was drawn into international trade and was seen as an important trading unit. European-like business organizations came into being and profits rose benefiting the rich businessmen.
However, amidst this progress, the country went through a series of calamities and millions died for sheer want of food. The unsatisfactory financial position of the Government resulted in heavier taxation, the decline of Indian handicrafts and lack of employment opportunities. This, with the dominance of the Europeans in civil and military services caused great discontent which became a major cause for arousing opposition to British rule. Tara Chand concludes:
“The analysis of the economy of India leads inevitably to the conclusion that basically the poverty of India was the consequence of foreign rule – the system of administration introduced by the British in India. It followed that no improvement in the economic conditions of the people could be expected in the character of the Government. It was necessary, therefore, to agitate for a change in government, or the introduction of a representative and democratic system, for the transfer of political power from the British to Indian hands. Important and urgent as the economic questions were, their solution depended upon the attainment of self-rule by India.”
Malaviya ji felt keenly the pain of India’s poverty and pauperization under British rule. He described the position of the country in the following words in his speech as president, Indian national congress at the Lahore session of 1909:
“The national income is low and therefore the national prosperity is low. People are dying with plague and malaria. Famines are calming a large toll and people are unprosparse and unhappy. That is the condition of the Country. On the other hand you find that this is the Country most richly endowed with natural resources. It is the country whose people are not lacking in intelligence and industry, and living most simple life. They are not addicted to crime as some of the most advanced country are. can there be anything more sad and disappointing than to find the people as still in such unfortunate condition that this country should be lie so low in the scale of nation? and if this is so what is our duty for the motherland?” (Zaidi, 1978, p475)
Malaviya ji advocated the promotion of technical education and indigenous industries as a remedy for India poverty.
The victory of Japan over Russia in 1905 in the first great war of the twentieth century arising out of the rival imperial ambitions of the two nations over Manchuria and Korea also had very important consequences in India. It gave emotional direction to the nationalist movement and its political demands. It also brought home the realization that the Japanese had succeeded because of their economic power and their high degree of scientific technical ability. This gave birth to economic nationalism and strengthened the Swadeshi movement originally initiated by the boycott campaign in Bengal. It not only became a political weapon but also led to the development of small-scale industries all over the country. Under the urge of this economic nationalism, large sums were raised for sending students abroad for technical education. It is therefore, particularly understandable why leaders like Vivekananda, Tagore and Malaviya ji all admired Japan and wanted to incorporate in India’s vision for its future Japan’s way of combining art and utility, its emphasis on technical education and its aesthetics. With the fusion of political and economic demands, the trading classes who had remained largely aloof from politics, began to align themselves with the political class.
The First World War opened up further opportunities in India for industrial development and by the end of it, the Government had to yield to public pressure and appoint an Industrial Commission to recommend how Indian industries could be best financed and developed. When the legislatures were enlarged in the post-war period and more power was placed in the hands of the trading classes, demands were made in the name of economic nationalism which met with a degree of success that helped Indian industry.
Many leading Indian trading and business families began to adopt the British modes of commerce and exploit the new opportunities. With this, the colonial society provided mechanisms to rise socially. These became especially important for the aspiring new class of government officials, urban professionals, businessmen and publicists. The most efficient, which spanned both colonial and indigenous arenas of public domain, was philanthropy and patronage of charitable, educational and religious institutions. This class contributed to medical and educational philanthropy and supported public libraries, the latter being a new addition to the colonial state’s educational agenda.
In a period of rapid modernization when the religious identity was in the process of being negotiated, reformulated and asserted, the institution of caste was rediscovered and several associations were formed on that basis. This was in tune with the rising culture of the formation of associations, a natural outcome of networks formed through philanthropic, trading and professional activities. These were also invested with moral messages and so emphasized social service and reformist activities. Agendas of community uplift had a clearly patriotic thrust and were seen eventually as a means to uplift the Indian nation at large. In the modern public arena, caste affiliation came to be portrayed as, “an expression of citizenship and spiritually informed nationality which had the potential to fulfill and regenerate the modern Hindu”.
The culture of forming associations also saw a proliferation of debating clubs, scientific institutes and literary or reformist societies. With its focus on education, literature and social reform, this new form of organized indigenous agency grew out of and catered to the need of the educated Indian elite to debate the implications of colonial rule and participate in the process of the modernization of Indian. There were intersections of both synergy and conflict between various sections of people whether they were rising professionals, small-scale house owners, old service communities, religious grouping, merchants and others. Each of them attempted to establish local areas of influence. Gradually the grip of the influential old rais families over the social life of the city weakened and professional men and publicists gradually began to replace them as intermediaries with the local authorities. An outbreak of ‘communal’ tension between 1909 and 1917 provides an insight into the shifts in local influence and power. While the members of the old rais families and some powerful new traders continued to play an important role in the maintenance of peace, but professional men and publicists were found taking a much more active part. For example, during the outbreaks of 1917 and after, active lawyer-politicians such as Purushottam Das Tandon and Madan Mohan Malviya, consulted with the authorities and arranged bodies of conciliation.
Throughout this turbulent period of struggle for independence and the desire to ameliorate the lot of the people of India, national leaders were constantly preoccupied with the kind of education that needed to be given in India if country was to be freed and made into a prosperious nation. This was because the foundations of higher education in India were laid by Macaulay who had a two fold aim: one, to produce cheap clerical labour to serve the needs of the colonial empire; second, to create a class of people who would perpetuate the legacy of the empire by looking down upon their own, cultural values and upholding those of the British ruling class. As Amilcar Cabral points out, the experience of colonial domination shows that the coloniser provokes and develops the cultural alienation of a part of the population by the so-called assimilation of indigenous elites distancing them from the popular masses. As a result, a section of the people assimilate the colonisers mentality, considers itself culturally superior to its own people and looks down upon their cultural values. This is the situation of the majority of colonised intellectuals and their position is consolidated by increase in social privileges.
The University system that was set up by the colonisers for their own ends has ironically been expanded and strengthened in independent India rather than being adapted to meet the requirements of a newly emerging nation. Why did this happen? Because no sincere thought was given to what was sought to be achieved through higher education. There was a turmoil of ideas, and perhaps our minds were too conditioned by the West and its institutions while being critical of our own heritage with some justification as these had degenerated for a variety of reasons to be able to achieve a clarity of purpose and base of our educational institutions on our own heritage.
Indian civilization and culture met the European at a time of social disintegration and political anarchy. It was the evening of the past from which a new age had to start and the impact of the West with its new ideas and, in many respects, opposite civilisational values provided a challenge. While it created in Indians a sense of great inferiority with regard to their tradition and heritage, it simultaneously forced them to take a hard look at it, reassess it and to come to terms with it. In the process education became a dominant theme in the minds of many national leaders who attempted to make connections between the past and the modern knowledge and ideas coming from the West.
The question arises what was the modernist agenda and what form did it take in India because of the European contact and British rule. The British highlighted the weaknesses of the traditional social order of the Indians, inferiorising their culture, epistemology and even the people as a race. This provoked a reaction on two planes. On one, the traditional order was found inadequate to meet the challenges of Western modernity. On the second, the cultural hegemonization by the colonial state was found unacceptable as it bred an anxiety about the survival of tradition itself hence the debates on tradition and modernity.
For most, `modern’ became associated with `western’ and all the debates took place from the point of view of how to come to terms with modernity and westernization and its vision of progress and economic prosperity. What was `western’ provided the model and showed the way. It came to be believed that change could only be brought about in the western way; that the only possible route and finally acceptable model was the western one. The total acceptance of this model of modernization created the relationship of the teacher and the taught between the west and the east. The idea turned into a conviction that to become modern, people must learn the knowledge system of the west, its life-style and behavior patterns. In effect, the east must become the mirror image of the west. Britain used this not only to strengthen British colonialism but also to project Indians as incapable of self-rule, the white man’s burden being to civilize India.
The contact with the west brought its difficulties but it also shook India out of its complacencies. The first generation of intellectuals arose with their western education. They were intensely patriotic and impatient to see a transformed India, modernized completely in body, mind and spirit. However, they realized that colonial education was not the answer. Sri Aurobindo voicing his disillusionment with it said:
all that appears to be almost unanimously agreed on is that the teaching in the existing schools and universities has been bad in kind and in addition denationalizing, degrading and impoverishing to the national mind, soul and character because it is overshadowed by a foreign hand and foreign in aim, method, substance and spirit.
Disregard of individual growth by the education system must inevitably lead to failure even in the collective or societal aims sought to be achieved. As Sri Aurobindo tells us :
there are three things which have to be taken into account in a true and living education, the man, the individual in his commonness and in his uniqueness, the nation or people and universal humanity. It follows that that alone will be a true and living education which helps to bring out to full advantage, makes ready for the full purpose and scope of human life all that is in the individual man, and which at the same time helps him to enter into his right relation with the life, mind and soul of the people to which he belongs and with that great total life, mind and soul of humanity of which he himself is a unit and his people or nation a living, a separate and yet inseparable member.
Thus, the education of the individual is very important because the individual is the building block of society, nation and humanity.
Vivekananda saw education as a process “man-making.” His ideas were moored in Vedanta as he emphasized the need to awaken man to his spiritual self though education. The evil of present day education for him was that it had no definite goal to pursue and hence the teacher himself was floundering. But education was a means of arousing men to the awareness of his true self. The soul or the spirit, however, could not be developed in isolation from the body and mind. Therefore a harmonious development of the body, mind and soul was required. It is not “the amount of information that is put in your brain and runs riot there undigested all your life.” It is a process by which character is formed, strength of mind increased and intellect is sharpened, as a result of which one can stand on one’s own feet. While he advocated the use of mother tongue as the right medium of instruction, he also prescribed the learning of English and Sanskrit. English was necessary for mastering Western science and technology, Sanskrit led one into the depths of our vast store of classics. In his scheme of education, Vivekananda includes all those studies that were necessary for the all-round development of the body, mind and soul of the individual. These can be brought under the broad heads of physical culture, aesthetics, classics, language, religion, science and technology.” According to Swamiji, the culture of India has its roots in her spiritual values. The time-tested values are to be imbibed in the thoughts and lives of the students thought the study of the classics like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Gita, Vedas and Upanishads. This will keep the perennial flow of our spiritual values into the world culture.
Tagore too was completely unhappy with the colonial education that had been established in India. He said,
“For us, modern education is relevant only to turning our clerks, lawyers, doctors, magistrates and policemen…… This education has not reached the farmer, the oil grinder, nor the potter. No other education society has been struck with such disaster… If ever a truly Indian university is established it must from the very beginning implement India’s own knowledge of economics, agriculture, health, medicine and of all other everyday science from the surrounding villages. Then alone can the school of university become the centre of the country’s way of living. This school must practice agriculture, dairying and weaving using the best modern methods… I have proposed to call this school Visva Bharati.”
“What would truly be Indian education? “We must try to understand how Indian genius expressed itself.. Unless we try to put these together and discover the integrating factors behind these diverse streams of thought and make them a subject of study at our universities, we would only be borrowing knowledge from abroad. The natural habitat for knowledge is where it is produced. The main task of universities is to produce knowledge, its dissemination is its secondary function. We must invite those intellectuals and scholars to our universities who are engaged in research, invention or creative activity.
While nations sought primarily to give their citizens a means of livelihood through education, Tagore believed that there was a more important aim – that of personal fulfillment and self improvement. It was important to borrow knowledge and experience from abroad, but not to use them as the foundation for Indian education. Even so, if there was one European quality which Indian university students needed to acquire, it was `the desire to know, to find out about the laws of nature and to use them for the betterment of the conditions of human beings.’ It was fully realized that science and its applications in the form of technology had led to the power and prosperity of Western countries. Unless India acquired the knowledge of science and technology through its universities and schools, poverty and powerlessness would continue. To transform life and make it richer, healthier and more educated, it was imperative to accept to technology and science. But Tagore wanted science to be taught along with India’a own philosophical and spiritual knowledge at Indian universities.
As far as Gandhi was concerned, ‘no one rejected colonial education as sharply and as completely as Gandhi did, nor did anyone else put forward an alternative as radical as the one he proposed’, to use Krishna Kumar’s words. Education for him not only moulded the new generation, but also reflected a society’s fundamental assumptions about itself and the individuals which compose it. He himself had been a beneficiary of Western education and while in South Africa, urged people to take advantage of it. But gradually he became opposed to English education as he saw it as an instrument of subjugation of the people of India. His experience in the freedom struggle and the fact that all official, legal and commercial interaction had to be in English which divided the elite from the masses, the ruler from the ruled, thus disempowering the vast majority of the people, made him firmly believe that education should be in the native tongue. He did not blame the British for imposing English because he saw that it was logical for them to mould Indians into their ways of thinking and living as this was a way of consolidating the Empire. Indians were to blame as they had accepted this situation.
To remedy the situation, Gandhi turned the education system on its head through his concept `basic education’ when he insisted that craft had to be at the core of learning. Hence students had to be educated in the production processes involved in crafts such as spinning, weaving, leather work, pottery, metal work, basket-making and book-binding, that had up to now been the monopoly of specific caste groups in the lowest stratum of the traditional social hierarchy. This was in contrast to India’s own tradition of education as well as the colonial education system that emphasized skills such as literacy and acquisition of knowledge which was the stronghold of the upper castes. Giving primacy to craft meant empowering the child belonging to the lowest stratum of society. It was a way of restructuring opportunities and bringing about societal transformation.
Madan Mohan Malaviya was in the same line of thinkers on what kind of education India needed. Banaras Hindu University was his attempt to give shape to what he thought would be education appropriate for on emerging independent nation. The idea of the university was born out of his deep love for Hindu culture and its spiritual ideas but the scheme for the university was drawn up through discussions with his friends and the co-operation of Mrs. Annie Besant, the Maharajadhiraj of Darbhanga and the Maharaja of Benares. The importance that he attached to the economic development of the country made him combine the teaching of science and technology with that of religion. The Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Mining, Metallurgy and Geology, the Ayurvedic College and an Allopathic Hospital, which was named after Pandit Sunder Lal, the first Vice-Chancellor of the University, were started soon after the University was established. This made the Hindu University pre-eminent among the then existing Indian Universities.
Paramanad Singh and Sunita Singh have analyzed the philosophy of Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya’s educational vision. He initially wanted the proposed university to promote the study of Hindu Shastras and Sanskrit literature generally as a means of preserving and popularizing, for the benefit of Hindus in particular and of the world at large, the best thought and culture of the Hindus, and all that was good and great in the ancient civilization of India; to promote learning and research generally in arts and science in all branches; to advance and diffuse such scientific, technical and professional knowledge combined with the necessary practical training as is best calculated to help in promoting indigenous industries, in developing the material resources of the country; and to promote the building of the character in youth by religion and ethics as an integral part of education .So these objective show Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya’s vision of higher education. On one side it was to reflect Veda, Upanishad, all ancient scriptures and texts and, on other side, reflect science technology, and integration of medical, engineering, agriculture and technical education.
It made him dream of a new kind of curriculum taught by a new kind of school for a self reliant society. To attain this end he provided the tentative patterns of vocational studies in which cultivation of initiative and self help were the dominant objectives. The idea was to create an appropriate education system that could meet the urgent social and economic needs of a poor country.
That this was a revolutionary idea is evident from the Report of the Commission on Christian Higher Education in India and Burma. The Commission pointed out that in the past the stability of the Indian society had depended on three factors: village communities that ensured adequate exploitation of land; the caste system which divided the society into units with specific and complementary functions organized on a cooperative basis; and a set of beliefs that embodied sociological transcendental values that gave meaning and direction to an individual’s life in relation to the society and the universe. As long as these factors remained intact, the Report pointed out, India remained unchanged and could face the challenges posed in turn by Buddhism and Islam. Even Christianity had not been able to make much of headway. However, the economic foundations on which Indian society were built were being modified in the nineteenth century and this was leading to fundamental and substantial changes.
One of these was the coming of science and technology, the symbol of which was the steel bridge linking the two banks of the Ganges in Varanasi. The alien forces, of which railways were a symbol, were disintegrating the material foundations of a village society of which Hinduism was the religion. But, said the Commission,
Hinduism and the railway bridge were coming to terms with each other. This could be seen in the untiring efforts of Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya that had led to the creation of a modern Hindu University, whose purpose among others is to stimulate studies in Hindu literature and culture, religion and philosophy. But what has it actually accomplished? The recognized and apparently outstanding achievement of the Hindu University has been the creation of an efficient department of engineering.
Therefore, the essence of Malaviya ji’s vision was that if India had to be freed and made into a prosperous nation it was necessary to impart holistic education that could enthuse a transformative process in India. For this industrial and technical education was necessary.
His far reaching vision also made him realize the importance of commercial education as a factor in national and international progress.
It had been recognized in the leading countries of the West that the leaders of commerce and business need to be scientifically trained just as a doctor or a barrister or professional man is… Modern experience shows us that business requires administrative capacity of the very highest type. It needs not merely technical knowledge, but also the power of dealing with new situations, of going forward at the right moment and of controlling labour.
These are just the qualities which universities have always claimed as being their special business to foster.
Yet India’s own cultural and spiritual heritage had to form the foundation of the educational vision because every nation had its own genius and could only grow according to it. The prospectus of the proposed Banaras Hindu University noted
mere industrial advancement cannot restore India to the position which she once occupied among the civilized countries of the world. And even industrial prosperity cannot be attained amongst all concerned, and these can only prevail and endure amongst those who are fair in all their dealings, strict in the observance of good faith and steadfast in their loyalty to truth. Such men cannot be found in sufficiently large numbers to keep a society in an organized, efficient and healthy condition, when the society to which they belong is not under the abiding influence of a great religion acting as a living force.
The proposed university placed the formation of character in youth as one of its principal objects. Malaviya ji said:
it will seek not merely to turn out men as engineers, scientists, doctors, merchants, theologians, but also as men of high character, probity and honour, whose conduct through life will show that they bear the hall-mark of a great university. Such character can be most securely built upon the solid foundation of religion.
Religion enjoins truthfulness, integrity, fortitude, self-help, self-respect, self-control, abstinence from injury, forgiveness, compassion; philanthropy, hospitality, unselfish action for public good, reverence for age and authority, discipline and devotion to duty, and above all the service of God through the service of man and friendliness to the whole creation. In short, all the virtues which elevate human character, support human society, and promote peace on earth and good-will among men are inculcated by means of solemn injunctions, touching anecdotes and eloquent discourses. Hindu philosophy cooperates with Hindu religious literature in the task of leading man into the path of righteousness, in as much as it teaches him that every creature around him is his own self in another guise, and that he rises in the scale of being by doing good to those with whom he comes in contact and degrades himself by injuring his fellow-creatures.
Thus, it can be seen that Malaviya ji did not want to follow India of 5,000 years ago. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan said:
He adjusted himself to the spirit of modern times and did his level best to inspire his countrymen with progressive impulses and utilize science for the service of the man. While preserving the imperishable treasures of our past, he moved forward with the times. He was responsible to an extent for the renaissance of our spiritual heritage. The renewal of those ideals and their application to the needs of our country is an important lesson which we take from the life of Malaviya ji.
The Banaras Hindu University Bill was introduced in the Imperial Legislative Council on 22nd March 1915. In the discussion on the Bill, Malaviya ji answered the charge that he was creating a denominational institution that would encourage sectarianism and divisiveness:
the University will be a denominational institution, but not a sectarian one. It will not promote narrow sectarianism but a broad liberation of mind and a religious spirit which will promote brotherly feeling between man and man… I believe instruction in the truth of religion, will tend to produce men who, if they are true to their religion, will be true to their God, their King and their country…. Where the true religious spirit is inculcated there must be an elevating feeling of humility and where there is love of God there will be a greater love and less hatred of man….
In defence of the provision by which membership of the University Court had been confined to Hindus, he said that “the Hindus who might make benefactions in favour of the institution should feel satisfied that their charity would be administered by men who will be in religious sympathy with them.” In the Senate which was the academic body of the university, he pointed out, one fourth of the members might be non-Hindus so that the cooperation of non-Hindus in the ordering of the academic activity of the university was assured.
Indian higher education today is in a crisis. In spite of having the second largest higher education network in the world in terms of student enrolment, it is almost at the bottom in terms of quality and skills. It is affected by global trends but is unable to deal with them. A large part of the renewed enthusiasm for higher education and research stems from the purely utilisation motivation that it will lead to higher and higher rates of economic growth and more and more income for individuals who can use the new technologies. This has created unacceptable levels of disparity because developing countries like India do not have the necessary resources or the school education base of the developed world. Therefore, for various historical reasons, mainly colonialism, research efforts are unevenly distributed between different countries and regions. As Jen Revolds points out, it is only a few industrialized countries that conduct the greater part of world’s research. Quite inevitably they deal with their own needs. Applied to developing countries their solutions may not be appropriate. Also, developing countries may not even have the level of competency in education, research and technology that is required to benefit from the knowledge developed elsewhere. If development is the practical end sought to be achieved through research and its applications, the universalistic scientific approach without factoring in the national, social and cultural dimensions, can lead to problematic and even tragic results. Therefore scientific endeavours have to be linked to social concerns and scientists need to be aware of the societal impact of their work before their research and its applications bring collective well being and equity in society and salvage the Earth’s environment. For this expert knowledge has to become comprehensible and more widespread that is disseminated in simple terms in varied democratic spaces. It would enable plural perspectives to emerge and increase informed awareness among citizens. Without it, the growth of higher education will not necessarily reduce social and economic inequalities and may even widen the gulf. These disparities can develop both domestically within nations and internationally among different nation states.
The process started with the move towards open market policies in the 1970s when greater emphasis was given to growth than to income distribution and social objectives. This was the wisdom of North America and the OECD countries and finally it was followed by the whole world. This brings us to what, Mahmood Mamdani speaking in the context of Africa says, the central issue is that we are still dealing in the framework of the Western paradigms derived from the values of Enlightenment, whether we extol its virtues or critique it. However, as he points out, while it may be vital to understand Enlightenment, but if it is an exclusively European phenomenon, it excludes Africa. By the same token it also excludes Asia. So the central question is whether universities in Africa and Asia can be founded on those values.
The implication of exclusively following the Enlightenment framework is, as Mamdani points out, that it presents a single model derived from the dominant Western experience and reduces research to a mere demonstration of whether societies around the world conform to that model or deviate from it. This has to be challenged because discordant experiences, whether Western or non-Western, cannot be dehistoricized or decontextualised to somehow make them fit into the dominant Western experience.
Higher education and science have to be more evenly distributed around the world and develop certain features that have largely been absent in the post-colonial and semi-colonial world. Universities cannot just do science research that is neutral. They must contribute to the building of a foundation of civic and democratic values for social cohesion and purpose. They must create knowledge that not only leads to economic growth but also to an understanding of how to overcome racial and ethnic tensions, dogmatism and religious extremism that often come with uneven growth and uneven distribution of fruits. This requires immediate attention to cultural diversity in higher education and research within the framework of globalization. This does not mean merely increasing the population of the under represented social groups in a campus population. It means building knowledge systems that give an understanding of diverse values, policies, practices, traditions, resources and living knowledge systems outside the formal structures so that students, faculty and communities that have been excluded up to now can become part of the knowledge resource and provide keys and solutions that have eluded thought and policy.
As Brew says, teachers need to know how individuals experience the subject. Both as researchers and teachers they are essentially involved in “meaning-making activity” or “making sense of chaos and translating this into culturally accepted explanations.” But increasingly it is being understood that the learning process is also “meaning-making” or “constructivism” on the part of the learner. Therefore, teaching has to be a process of helping students to construct knowledge rather than simply transmitting it to them. Hence the emerging pedagogical goals and emphases, cannot be “objective knowledge” which is outside the learner and which can be obtained through multiple sources “but the subjective processes of the learner” and the acknowledgement that “learning always takes place in a particular context.”
This involves not only knowledge but also skills of self management, communication, team working and interpersonal skills. Further, all disciplines are interlinked and have to be seen as a continuum. Also, since teaching and learning processes are embedded in particular contexts, there has to be a commitment to local and regional knowledge production, rooted in relevant linguistic and disciplinary terms, with a critical and disciplined reflection on the globalization of modern forms of knowledge and modern instruments of power. Rather than oppose the local to the global, the global has to be understood from the vantage point of the local. Research will then have to try to understand alternative forms of aesthetic, intellectual, ethical, and political traditions, both contemporary and historical, the objective being not just to learn about these forms, but also to learn from them. How is this analysis different from the vision of men like Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya and is it not imperative to come back to it? Modern higher education would have to be rooted in the cultural foundations of the place and people in which it is being transected to make it alive and dynamic. This, in essence, is also the vision of Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya and other thinkers of his time but which has got overlayed with pure utilitarianism in the hurry to catch up with the developed world.
Kavita A Sharma