Derived from Western systems, modern education in India has ignored the country’s traditional knowledge
The scientific temper and managerial culture of traditional India is largely gone, by default, in its projection on the global map of knowledge and learning. This is not because of any internal weakness but due to a failure to come to grips with facts and the inability to use them for generating models for current Indian growth processes.
Modern educational institutions patterned not only their method of working after the West but, more dangerously, the content too was patterned after some dated contents of Western institutions. The results are there for all to see.
Successful consultancy organisations, of which several had originated in the West, and remained anchored in the West , could not be expected to go beyond their financial interests. As a result, only a few of them could help fully Indian organisations to grow. The message was simple: The route to growth was through patterns of Western institutions.
On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with this. Only, it will not work on a large enough scale to cause mass transformation in India. Most parts of India have institutions rooted in the Indian ethos and these are not amenable to Western instruments.
Indian models of urbanisation, as represented in the Harappan culture, or navigation as evident from the exploits of the Pandyas, Pallavas, Cholas and the Cheras, simply got slurred over. Instead of studying the exploits of Kanohijee Angre, we were studying how ‘sea power came to India’. Even in the emphasis of domestic history, the lionisation of icons had to do with what political purpose it fulfilled.
Akbar was proclaimed as ‘great’, who worked miracles with the revenue system — even though he was illiterate. It was forgotten that he really did nothing more than continue with the revenue system which Sher Shah Suri had devised. Akbar served a political purpose, Sher Shah did not.
Time is not only a great healer but a great leveller. It straightens out many contrived curves. To get back to the intellectual inheritance, one may refer to waterways-related skills. World navigation was born in the river Sindhu 6,000 years ago. It is derived from the Sanskrit word navgatih. The word, ‘navy’ is derived from the Sanskrit word nou. According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until the last decade of the 19th century, India was the only source for diamonds to the world.
Sushruta practiced surgery in India 2,600 years ago. He could do caesarian and cataract operations as well as extract urinary stones. He is reported to have done a brain surgery and plastic surgery as well. Obviously, he was using anesthesia. The surgical equipment used then have been discovered. They showed deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology and genetics.
Moreover, some of the earliest reservoirs and dams for irrigation were built in Saurashtra. Indian exports in the centuries before Christ included palm oil, cast iron, tin sheets, copper vessels, perfumes and camphor.
India’s knowledge of astronomy was phenomenal. Apollonius Tyanazeus, the Greek thinker of the first century AD, had commented on this. Indians knew the calculation of the eclipses and of the earth’s circumferences. The heliocentric theory of gravitation was taught in the learning centres. Pancha Siddhantika is testimony to this.
Indian physics and chemistry had recognised anu and parmanu. The five basic physical elements (panch tatva) were being used for better healthcare. Chess, polo and the martial arts were known to India. All this was apart and beyond the excellence of Indian philosophy and literature.
Such an environment is not possible without good governance and stable socio- economic conditions. There is obviously disconnect between what we see as the traits of Indians and what India actually stood for and was recognised to stand for.
China has re-acquired greatness, amongst other things, by respecting its past. No civil society can survive without some sound managerial principles and practices. We need to know what sustained us.
Our tragedy is not just the disconnect. Enough effort needs to be put in to understand what sustained Indian modes of productivity and their distribution. The managerial process, means of livelihood and ways of enabling talent, need to be re-discovered.