The Upper House of the Indian Parliament saw intense debates on Friday over India’s ancient civilization achievements, educational system, and knowledge traditions as BJP’s Rakesh Sinha moved a private member resolution requesting the government to set up research foundations to revive the ancient Indian knowledge system.
Stating that the English education system and western culture have colonized the minds of Indians, Rakesh Sinha proposed setting up research foundations centers all across India at the state and district levels to revive the ancient “Indian knowledge tradition”.
Talking about the demolition of ancient Indian learning centers like Nalanda and Takshila by Muslim Emperors during the medieval period, he said that India’s renowned knowledge centers faced political, military, and cultural attacks during the medieval and colonial period which many generations did not even know.
Speaking extensively about the western education system and the need for the decolonization of Indian minds, he said that English education and ideas originating from Europe enslaved ideas and discourses along with political slavery and this sentiment also prevailed after Independence.
However, the BJP’s MPs resolution glorifying the ancient Indian knowledge system generated intense debates in the Parliament with many questioning the character and universality of ancient India’s civilizational achievements and education system.
Knowledge was Controlled by One Particular Caste in Ancient India
Alleging that ancient Indian education traditions were deeply exclusionary, discriminatory, and focussed on only one caste i.e. Brahmins, many opposition MPs from the TMC, Congress, DMK, CPI(M), BJD, and RJD, etc argued that issues like casteism should not be glossed over while reflecting on past glories.
TMC MP Jawhar Sircar said that for centuries, knowledge was controlled by one particular caste and was not disseminated.
“When you talk of universities and the brilliance of learning, for centuries after centuries, for two-and-a-half millennia, it was centered on one caste. Would you like to go back to one caste? It was not a knowledge that was widespread”, he added.
Brahmins also Destroyed Buddhist Centres of Learnings
Sircar also said that ancient Indian knowledge had an obsessive urge to retain selective memory hinting that if Muslims and British destroyed Brahmanical centers of learning that Brahmins too had indulged in the wholesale destruction of Buddhist centers of learning in ancient India.
“Samrat Ashok is a pillar of our ancient period and was wiped off from history and not a single textbook mentioned about him for centuries until he was redis covered in 1837 in the Asiatic Society Kolkata,” he said, asking if the ancient emperor was erased from Indian history because he was Buddhist.
“When you talk of universities and brilliance of learning for centuries after centuries, two and a half millennia, it was centered on only one caste. I am sorry to say, would you like to go one caste? It was not a knowledge network widespread,” said the TMC lawmaker.
One should Avoid a Monolithic Projection of Indian Culture
Accusing the BJP of trying the Brahmanizing the Indian culture, DMK’s TKS Elangovan said while Indian culture has to be preserved, one should avoid a monolithic projection and be mindful of the diversity in the country.
“When somebody says that Manudharma is your dharma, how can I accept it? My dharma is not Manudharma. I don’t say that Manudharma is wrong. That is for them to keep. Whoever wants to follow Manudharma, can follow. But, I don’t want to follow Manudharma because in my area, South of Vindhyas, there is no Manudharma in force,” he said.
BJD MP Amar Patnaik said ethnographic studies need to be promoted. “While doing research and recapturing our history, our traditions, our knowledge traditions, our culture, we have to also banish the pernicious practices and, for example, the most important, the caste system. We cannot recapture something which was definitely responsible for the division in the society and which was used by the Colonial powers to regain and destroy our culture.”
Not Everything Old is Necessarily Gold
RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha assailed Rakesh Sinha’s submission of reviving Indian culture and education system while invoking the difficult times the country is going through when myths are being converted into history and history into myths.
Reminding the house that not everything old is necessarily gold, that Dr. BR Ambedkar opposed the Brahmanical culture and education and instead supported the Western modal of education which took an inclusive view of all castes and communities.
He said further that the fact that Bahujan thinkers like Babasaheb Ambedkar and Savitribai Phule had a different take on the impact of the tradition of education introduced by Macaulay should be reflected upon.
“Have we ever thought why Bahujan thinkers don’t deride Macaulay? Why do they believe that Macaulay also opened some doors?” added the RJD lawmaker.