INDIA, May 2, 2016 (My Digitalfc by Michel Danino): All too predictable — we seem to have gone through this countless times in recent years. No sooner had the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) issued a circular to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) encouraging them to initiate teaching activities centred on Sanskrit and in particular on texts of science and technology, than some of our politicians and “public intellectuals” rose as one man to brand it another obscurantist attempt to saffronise education. “I don’t think an IIT engineer will need Sanskrit in his profession. It is not right to force something like this,” opined a leading light of the Congress party.
Doubtless, IIT engineers will have no use for Sanskrit “in their profession”. But why stop there? They will have no use for history either and, therefore, it was wrong to “force” it upon them at school. Wrong also to have our future engineers study literature or any art form. Who needs any of that and how would it help you get a fat paycheck, which arguably is the sole objective of human existence?
What is needed is not governmental intervention, but the creation of an atmosphere of genuine culture where students are invited to critically explore wider horizons. Let the thali of Indian culture be offered to them, and let them be free to accept or reject this or that dish — but after tasting it. And let our “Public Ignoramus” spare us his high-decibel, stereotyped and neo-colonial disparagement of one of the finest heritages humanity may yet claim.
Much more at “source” above.