PaRCha - JNU - ABVP - 2000 ID-123
.
1 .
.
.
~-M-9 .
AKHIL BHARTIYA VIDYARTHI PARISHAD .
.
.
14.09.2002 .
SUPREME COURT VERDICT BURSTS THE MARXIST BUBBLE I .
Friends, . . . . .. Macaulay's dream progenies in the Indian Left have been made to b1te the dust. 01sm1ss1ng the petition against the National Curriculum Framework for Secondary Education, the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of value based education, the revised history text books, and the introduction of courses like Vedic Astrology, Human Consciousness etc. Its contention that religious education is not anti-thetical to the Indian notion of 'secularism', which bases itself on respect for all religions and not on negation of religion itself, has taken the .
winds out of the sails of Marxist propaganda. .
Our vision of a nationalist and culturally informed education system, which has now received legal backing, is fundamentally diffQtent from the Communist understanding of what should constitute an ideal education system. The Communists pride themselves in their slavish reverence to redundant 'Enlightenment' ideals like 'rationality', 'scienUficity' and 'progressivism', which form the shaky foundation of their fragile knowledge system. tlncritically accepting these categories as 'given' and beyond the scope of questioning, they understand neither their spatia-temporal boundaries nor the strong linkages between colonialism and their imposition on India. The existing education system, which received full support from the Congress and the Left, cannot be understood in isolation from the colonization of India in the late 181h and 191h centuries. Modernity as a complex of ideas and social processes may have symbolized a significant step In the material and Intellectual .
culture of humankind, but it cannot be denied that the era of colonial expansion and conquests coincided with the .
'Enlightenment' and the triumphant march of modernity. 'Enlightenment' ideas of 'rationality', 'scientificity' and .
'progressivism', the proud possession of the colonizers, not only sought to culturally hegemonize and .
homogenize the whole world, but also shaped the European self-image of 'progress' and 'civilization', which was .
used to dub the colonized people as 'irrational', 'barbaric', and 'retrogressive', or in anti-thetical terms to the .
colonizers' self-image. Seen in this light, modernity not only redefined the west but also defined lands like India .
which were seen in opposition to it and were to be 'rescued' by the introduction of western thought and .
institutions. Its pretensions of universality made it blind to the existence in the colonized lands of alternative .
cultures, which had their own specific historical roots. Any departure from the modern west was simplistically .
viewed as a sign of backwardness. .
Founded on these beliefs, the Macaulayan education system gradually realized its dream of colon.izing .
Indian minds : it made educated Indians view their own knowledge systems from the prism of the 'Enlightenment' .
ideas. This explains the Communist obsession for 'science' and 'rationality', and their paranoid reaction to any .
attempt to infuse and induct indigenous cultural values and knowledge in the curriculum. .
Leaders like Nehru, who were swept off their feet by Western ideas, uncritically borrowed irrelevant .
catchwords from the 'Enlightenment' lexicon. Thus 'secularism', originally meaning separation of the church and .
the s~ate-a very relevant concept in Europe-was superimposed on the Indian society with its meaning altered .
drastically. It became 'Sarva Pantha Sarna Bhava' -an idea that was already part of our civililational ethos .
which had always stood for freedom of belief; for the ideal of 'Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti', and not for th~ .
kind of rigid codification characteristic of the Semitic tradition. Thus, th-·gh Indian 'secularism' is not undesirable .
in itself, it need not be labeled 'secularism' at all. .
. . Friends, we ~eed to broaden our educational curriculum to give it an indigenous complexion without .
dlscar?mg western sc1ences. While modernity, and even post-modernity today, are a part of the continuous .
evolution of western intellectual tradition overtime, the unquestioned use of their premises to study our society .
would not only act as a hindrance in reviving, reconstructing and redefining our own knowledge systems, but also .
uproot knowledge production in India from its social context. The Supreme Court's welcome verdict gives us a .
chance to prevent this from happening. .
JOIN SILENT PROTEST MARCH AGAINST .
POLITICAL MISUSE OF GSCASH .
ON SUNDAY, 15.09.2002, AT 5.30 P.M. FROM GANGA DHABA .
.
VANDE MATRAM! .
Sd/- Sd/- .
Swadesh Shrish Chandra .
Jt. Secretary, ABVP, JNU Vice-President, ABVP, JNU .
.
.
.
.
.
PaRCha - JNU - ABVP - 2000 ID-123
.
1 .
.
.
~-M-9 .
AKHIL BHARTIYA VIDYARTHI PARISHAD .
.
.
14.09.2002 .
SUPREME COURT VERDICT BURSTS THE MARXIST BUBBLE I .
Friends, . . . . .. Macaulay's dream progenies in the Indian Left have been made to b1te the dust. 01sm1ss1ng the petition against the National Curriculum Framework for Secondary Education, the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of value based education, the revised history text books, and the introduction of courses like Vedic Astrology, Human Consciousness etc. Its contention that religious education is not anti-thetical to the Indian notion of 'secularism', which bases itself on respect for all religions and not on negation of religion itself, has taken the .
winds out of the sails of Marxist propaganda. .
Our vision of a nationalist and culturally informed education system, which has now received legal backing, is fundamentally diffQtent from the Communist understanding of what should constitute an ideal education system. The Communists pride themselves in their slavish reverence to redundant 'Enlightenment' ideals like 'rationality', 'scienUficity' and 'progressivism', which form the shaky foundation of their fragile knowledge system. tlncritically accepting these categories as 'given' and beyond the scope of questioning, they understand neither their spatia-temporal boundaries nor the strong linkages between colonialism and their imposition on India. The existing education system, which received full support from the Congress and the Left, cannot be understood in isolation from the colonization of India in the late 181h and 191h centuries. Modernity as a complex of ideas and social processes may have symbolized a significant step In the material and Intellectual .
culture of humankind, but it cannot be denied that the era of colonial expansion and conquests coincided with the .
'Enlightenment' and the triumphant march of modernity. 'Enlightenment' ideas of 'rationality', 'scientificity' and .
'progressivism', the proud possession of the colonizers, not only sought to culturally hegemonize and .
homogenize the whole world, but also shaped the European self-image of 'progress' and 'civilization', which was .
used to dub the colonized people as 'irrational', 'barbaric', and 'retrogressive', or in anti-thetical terms to the .
colonizers' self-image. Seen in this light, modernity not only redefined the west but also defined lands like India .
which were seen in opposition to it and were to be 'rescued' by the introduction of western thought and .
institutions. Its pretensions of universality made it blind to the existence in the colonized lands of alternative .
cultures, which had their own specific historical roots. Any departure from the modern west was simplistically .
viewed as a sign of backwardness. .
Founded on these beliefs, the Macaulayan education system gradually realized its dream of colon.izing .
Indian minds : it made educated Indians view their own knowledge systems from the prism of the 'Enlightenment' .
ideas. This explains the Communist obsession for 'science' and 'rationality', and their paranoid reaction to any .
attempt to infuse and induct indigenous cultural values and knowledge in the curriculum. .
Leaders like Nehru, who were swept off their feet by Western ideas, uncritically borrowed irrelevant .
catchwords from the 'Enlightenment' lexicon. Thus 'secularism', originally meaning separation of the church and .
the s~ate-a very relevant concept in Europe-was superimposed on the Indian society with its meaning altered .
drastically. It became 'Sarva Pantha Sarna Bhava' -an idea that was already part of our civililational ethos .
which had always stood for freedom of belief; for the ideal of 'Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti', and not for th~ .
kind of rigid codification characteristic of the Semitic tradition. Thus, th-·gh Indian 'secularism' is not undesirable .
in itself, it need not be labeled 'secularism' at all. .
. . Friends, we ~eed to broaden our educational curriculum to give it an indigenous complexion without .
dlscar?mg western sc1ences. While modernity, and even post-modernity today, are a part of the continuous .
evolution of western intellectual tradition overtime, the unquestioned use of their premises to study our society .
would not only act as a hindrance in reviving, reconstructing and redefining our own knowledge systems, but also .
uproot knowledge production in India from its social context. The Supreme Court's welcome verdict gives us a .
chance to prevent this from happening. .
JOIN SILENT PROTEST MARCH AGAINST .
POLITICAL MISUSE OF GSCASH .
ON SUNDAY, 15.09.2002, AT 5.30 P.M. FROM GANGA DHABA .
.
VANDE MATRAM! .
Sd/- Sd/- .
Swadesh Shrish Chandra .
Jt. Secretary, ABVP, JNU Vice-President, ABVP, JNU .
.
.
.
.
.