Higher education centres giving birth to caste thinking
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In a world that is moving forward in split seconds, international universities and higher education institutions are engaged in rigorous research studies to make human life easier and more efficient. The possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence have recently been the subject of intense debate and study in these places. Naturally, this is is a time when India also urgently needs to conduct rapid research projects, as the most populated country in the world, where a significant share of the population is young. However, the news we hear from our higher education institutions and their leaders is sad and disappointing. The head of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras), one of the biggest scientific institutions in the nation, has been preaching in public that drinking cow urine can cure illness in 15 minutes. This is justified by others which demonstrates the seriousness of the situation we are in. Along with its translation, the video of the speech is being widely shared on social media. There is a high possibility that normal people who believe this may even end up drinking urine in the hope of getting rid of their diseases, but causing harm. In any other country, someone who has made such a statement which seriously undermines public health would not be allowed to hold such a high position. At least a warning against reckless behaviour will be issued in the light of a study report prepared by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) that cow urine is not safe for human consumption and that there are 14 types of harmful bacteria in urine samples.
However, the person who preached the greatness of cow urine still continues to serve as the director of IIT-M without any difficulty. IIT Bombay (IIT-B), which has produced many scientists and has been a centre of logical thinking and scientific inquiry, is now embroiled in a controversy over superstition and casteism. A talk on "Garbhavigyan," or the science of childbirth held here last week, with a sanyasi as the keynote speaker, was an example of this. The organizers claimed that the aim of the seminar was to teach people how to give birth to 'great people'. However, students and many teachers alleged that the programme, which discussed how ancestors influence the qualities of the unborn child, was part of an effort to legitimize superstitions. The official explanation given to the media was that the event was organized by the institution's cultural cell and that since it was not a politically sensitive issue, it did not require a review of the permission. Remember that it was this same IIT that abruptly cancelled the speakers at the planned discussion organized by the gender cell on the contributions of Bhanwari Devi, who was gang raped and sexually assault in retaliation for stopping child marriage in the family and who fought relentlessly against sexual abuses.
The first IIT in the country came into being when freedom fighter and education thinker Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the Education Minister. The first part of the introduction in the website of the Council of Indian Institute of Technology reads "Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru pioneered establishing of the Indian Institutes of Technology to provide trained technical personnel of international class to the nation who would act as leaders in technology for the newly born independent India". It is clear that these are not the places to promote ideas like the cow urine theory and Vedic pregnancy practices. However, as the ruling party in the country implements a plan to saffronize educational institutions by inserting Hindutva ideology and ideas in the syllabus, many academic leaders are vying to become professors of superstitious subjects, undermining the objective of scientific research. Despite strong opposition, Delhi University, one of the country's premier universities, approved six value-added courses on Thursday, four of which are on the Bhagavad Gita. There is no doubt that the curricula of hundreds of universities in the country will be restructured in the sameline if the new UGC guidelines are adopted and people with the government's interests are appointed to the posts of vice chancellors. Many universities have already started seminars and symposia on controversial topics, misusing funds that should have been used for general education. The nation is witnessing the real motive of the government's infiltration into academics which began several years ago in University of Hyderabad, JNU and Jamia Millia by cracking down on dissenting students and teachers and expelling them.
