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© 2012 Sanjeev Sabhlok's revolutionary blog
Here's a nice comment by Supratim about why we don't think critically or independently in India, and why India survives primarily because of the systems that the British rulers of India built for us. The autopilot, he show, applies not only to our bureaucracy, laws and democracy, but to our city plans and even drainage.
It all starts with our "DNA" – our educational methods.
A slightly edited extract of his comment is provided below, followed by my brief comment:
Taught not to ask questionsWe are taught to always respect our elders, to never question them. From childhood we are indoctrinated to not question. The Guru-shishya parampara of ancient India has degenerated into rote and blind obedience. This may be the genetic feature that Vishal was searching for.We, Indians despise/hate westerners – who question their parents, their elders and their teachers, even if the questions themselves are framed respectfully and with a genuine desire to either learn or to point out a fallacy.Memorising, not even rote learningOur education system builds upon this and takes it further into rote learning (actually, memorising, rather than learning) and an emphasis on grades.I will give you a couple of examples:1. My niece who is in the first grade in the US does projects virtually all the time – you choose a topic, you RESEARCH it and then you make a presentation to your class – can you see how you are being taught to be self-driven, independent thinking and problem solving from such an early age? OTOH, my kids in first grade had a pile of 12 textbooks that they had to memorise and regurtitate in the exams? So what are they teaching in India? To become dictaphones.2. The British built the drainage systems of Mumbai and Kolkata some 150-200 years ago – these drains, even today with the population of these cities having increased over 100x, probably 500x, work quite comfortably in taking out the sewage water from these two cities, except in exception circumstances? Can you see the vision at work here? They built systems that are still capable after 200 years.OTOH, we have the examples of Bangalore and Chennai, which became metropolises much later under Indian "administration", essentially having no drainage system worth the name, so much so that even 2cms of rains will flood these cities.[There is] no easy solution – except the passage of time, and greater exposure of Indians to the "systems of western civilisation".
My comment
Very well said, Supratim. The examples are very evocative. EACH HUMAN in the West is encouraged to reach his highest potential. EACH HUMAN in India is encouraged to become a second-rater – a copycat, a dictaphone, a hard disk.
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#India’s #education system is its DNA: children are moulded into dictaphones: Here's a nice… http://t.co/nfLBAzM
We r trained to b copy cats http://t.co/w7Wrvqb #education
India’s education system is its DNA: children are moulded into dictaphones http://t.co/AAApRxl
Talking about current education system, I guess its introduced by Thomas B. Macaulay.Also many of the socialist policies implemented by Nehru were inherited from British and these policies were one of the main reasons behind 1857 uprising !!! Please have a look at this link,
http://varnam.nationalinterest.in/2011/02/in-pragati-book-review-operation-red-lotus-by-parag-tope/
Author says,
"…1857 revolt had a clear vision for the future. After the uprising’s initial success, Bahadur Shah Zafar made a proclamation, read by his grandson in Azamgarh. The proclamation promised a triad of invaluable freedoms: Political, personal and economic.
The crony-capitalist state run by the British East India Company had destroyed the free market system in India. Heavy taxation was the norm, while prices were enforced with the threat of punishment. Manufacturing capabilities were crippled, and the agricultural sector lost the ability to shield the country from the threat of famines. Due to India’s asymmetrical role in the global network, even as the country’s share in the world’s GDP fell from 25 percent to 12, Britain’s share doubled."
Sanjeev,
//We are taught to always respect our elders, to never question them. From childhood we are //indoctrinated to not question. The Guru-shishya parampara of ancient India as degenerated into //rote and blind obedience
Its this kind of unscientific way of thinking which makes us coming up these sweeping generalizations about subjects which we really don't know much.We Indians especially elites/intellectuals just quote from here and there, make some bold but abstract statements to prove their preconceived notions.
How many of us have really seen or know about what was the Guru – Shishya system was really like? If indeed it was promoting blind acceptance. how come so many discoveries happened in the fields of mathematics,astronomy and medicine (to name a few) till 5 centuries ago in India? Also can we say whole India which was (still is) so diverse had only one system to impart knowledge to the people?
As you always say, India failed because of Nehru's Socialism.But it was not only him, many great intellectuals of his time shared same ideology.They all looked up to Russia and UK to draw an inspiration.They thought (with all sincerity) emulating this system would make India a developed nation in true sense.So they copied concepts like IIT ,planning commission and many more .
But one more thing they all shared was utter disrespect for any thing Indian.They (definitely Nehru….read his discovery of India) had absolutely no idea what India really was and not even he tried to find out unlike Gandhi.So more than ideology, fundamental problem was his ignorance or even unwillingness to understand India and to impose a system which he thought was right.
Simple example would be Nehru's secularism.In India for thousands of years, people belonged to different religions,languages lived together.Instead of finding out (could have tried at-least) what kind of solutions people came up with which made them co-exist with each other for so long as a society, Nehru just imposed his version of secularism and the result… after independence communal violence have only increased instead of reducing and people are lot more polarized.One more blunder was to implement uniform civil code (Hindu law) for Hindus when large percentage of so called Hindus themselves didn't know what "Hindu" meant !!!
To current generation its no more Russia/UK…its USA now and currently we are stuck between two kinds of people.One is RSS kind of people who thinks there is nothing to learn from the west and Indian civilization had every thing from electricity to nuclear weapons.Then there is an other kind, who think only way out for India would be to become west as quickly as possible.
So my only point is, lets not be selective in our scientific temper.Lets analyse both the systems and see what kind of systems/institutions people had. If relevant, learn from both, as ultimately its going to benefit mankind.Lets not say, a particular culture, society or a system is a sole repository of knowledge and go with one size fits all strategy which I do not think a liberal view !
But I do support liberalism even though I believe classical liberalism is an idea came out of experiences of people of different culture and everything may not be applicable in other cultures.But it promotes liberty which is crucial for people of any culture to come up with their own solutions (systems/institutions) and evolve with time unlike socialism which treats people like machines and imposes its own (elite) solutions from the top !
Sandeep
It would be facile to attribute the current education system to Macaulay. You could talk about his role in the English language (indeed, even the introduction of English as the language of teaching was certain without him, as I’ve clearly shown earlier). However, in relation to the education system, it was merely linked to the British system (in terms of examination standards and questions) – and was mostly left free (private schools/colleges), and there is nothing wrong in having high standards of education.
The current system with HUGE direct government intervention and management is PURELY Nehruvian.
And no, the British did NOT destroy the free market system in India. Indeed, growth rates in India after the British came in were significantly higher than they were in the past (please check Angus Madison’s global analysis of economic growth). They did try to impose barriers against Indian businessmen, but these were relatively small. Note that not only did the Tatas flourish but also a range of other tycoons. Calcutta was a MAJOR industrial center of the world till after independence, when both geographical factors and socialist incompetence destroyed its industry. India also managed to get a very large number of private financial institutions and banks during British rule.
No, it was not perfect in any way, and it was definitely a good thing to get rid of the British, but their ideas were CLASSICAL LIBERAL, not socialist. It would be great folly to mix up Nehru and the British.
S
Dear Sandeep
I have no doubt that Indians have evolved excellent solutions to many problems. Indeed, the caste system was a viable solution to social organisation during the agricultural era. I’ve explained that elsewhere at length. Similarly, India developed the hundi system (bill of exchange) to develop indigenous banking expertise. The gurukul system was well adapted to feudalism, with the top castes being educated in traditional knowledge. It helped turn over the ancient knowledge for millennia without any deficiency in translation of knowledge (or speculation) from one generation to the next.
In other words, Indian society was vibrant – FOR THE AGRICULTURAL AGE. India therefore was the richest nation in the world till around 1750.
However, since then the concept of liberty became more important and feudalism was given farewell. That led to great competition, great change. It also created vast amounts of wealth, most of which fell to the share of the industrialists. People like Nehru thought that they could equalise things with socialism.That was the big mistake. You can’t create wealth under socialism, for the idea of equalisation kills off incentives.
One thing let me say. You can’t go BACKWARDS in time. You can ONLY go forward.
In the system I advocate (freedom) people like you who want to establish Gurukuls will be free to do so, equally as others who want to establish Harvards in India. The market (people, with free choice) will determine which it is they prefer.
So instead of trying to go backward, let’s move forward – towards liberty, prosperity, greater health and wisdom.
S
Sanjeev,
Because some thing belongs to past…does that automatically become anti-liberal,feudalistic and there by irrelevant to the modern society with out even analyzing it scientifically ?
///let’s move forward – towards liberty, prosperity, greater health
I totally agree when you talk about liberalism, for creating wealth and moving towards prosperity. I do not think any society with out liberty will be able to achieve greater prosperity and sustain it.
Its a universal phenomenon that people respond to incentives and government by its nature can not create wealth. Also I believe, when people feel that they are the owners of their own destiny and responsible for their economical/social status, there's going to be a less tussle in a society irrespective of how unequal it is!
But I doubt liberalism can be applied as it is, specially when we talk about social institutions.One likes it or not, classical liberalism has developed in west and it has some cultural context to it. Renaissance thinkers suddenly didn't come up with some thing totally new. These developments had a history and in one or the other way, many are solutions to the problems west has faced for a very long time.
(Contd)
Lets consider secularism and “right to proselytize” which (I guess you agree) totally compatible with classical liberalism.In west where all the (semitic) religions originated, fundamentally believed in proselytizing as each claim to be a true religion and it perfectly makes sense to have proselytization as a right and leave it to the people.
But problem starts,when you bring these concepts like religion,secularism and proselytization which are not just words but has some cultural contexts to them (to make sense of them in an actual manner) to a country which is culturally different and where people have different notions.
India where almost all the school of thoughts (lets not call them religions) originated, doesn't claim to be true and there by do not believe in conversion, so is it compatible with liberalism to have proselytization as a right in India ? Because if state does, then you are forcing some thing which indic traditions do not believe and state ends up being favoring semitic religions.So isn't it coercion by the state (already seeing the reaction i.e aggressive “Shuddhikaran” from so called hindu groups) ? But if state doesn't, it falls in other extreme. So whats the way out ?
Also the concept of religious majorities and minorities, isn't it again boils down to the social realities of west? Society where people were constantly persecuted on the basis of religion, western society had to come up with solutions like secularism, in which religious majorities and minorities were recognized and rights were protected.Also uniform civil code suits western society which is more of a monolithic society.
But when these concepts were brought to the very diverse society where social realities were different, it ended up being destroying liberal institutions existed [Read Madhu Kishwar's very interesting Codified Hindu Law – Myth and Reality ] and religious violence have only increased after Independence. So is it appropriate to say, a secularism which is a solution to the west's problems, created more problems for another culturally different society, as secularism it self has a specific cultural context to it ?
This is where I think, one needs to understand the society before just importing solutions from outside.In this case one needs to ask why there were no religious persecutions in India inspite of diversity and what solutions society came up with for say “proselytization”, which enabled people of different traditions,religions and languages to co-exist with each other for so long! Why fix some thing if it is not broken? I believe one size fits all strategy can not be a basis for liberalism or any thing which is scientific.
Probably Gandhi (as advised by Gopal Krishna Gokhale) understood this more than any other contemporary leader and first he traveled all around India to understand India before starting a freedom movement.Also India had a tradition of bringing changes via social awareness and not through legislations.
In a away I agree with you that education system is responsible, as even now text books on History of India referred in many of the universities were written by western thinkers who never visited India!
//In the system I advocate (freedom) people like you who want to establish Gurukuls will be free to do so, //equally as others who want to establish Harvards in India.
Thats why I said previously, I do support liberalism even though I believe classical liberalism is an idea came out of experiences of people of different culture and everything may not be applicable in other cultures.But it promotes liberty which is crucial for people of any culture to come up with their own solutions (institutions) and evolve with time unlike socialism which treats people like machines and imposes its own (elite) solutions from the top !
As always am open to corrections !!!
Where did I say what you are claiming I have said: “Because some thing belongs to past…does that automatically become anti-liberal,feudalistic and there by irrelevant to the modern society with out even analyzing it scientifically?”
You first misrepresent me then “disprove” what I didn’t say!
Sandeep, please cite me clearly so I can clarify. Don’t interpret me without having read my work.
Dear Sandeep
Thanks. Good questions.
I’ve written a LOT on this topic already – please use google search to find out what I’ve said. Simply no time to repeat.
S