Indian Knowledge System Under the Scanner
Hiren Gohain | 25 May 2026 | Countercurrents.org
Time was when university curricula in India were prepared by senior professors, respected authorities in various fields. These delivered for some time until the danger of obsolescence and irrelevance, against which the system was not insured, loomed large. Younger enthusiasts of new knowledge who wanted a radical makeover of outdated curricula were, however, understandably suspected of the fanaticism of zealots. The gap between the knowledge developing in Western hatcheries and their Indian counterparts, modelled on them during the colonial regime, grew wider. Today, in universities of the metropolises and those in outlying areas, the gap is made up to widely different degrees thanks to the quicker induction of fresh graduates from the West in the metropolises.
During colonial times, the irony had already become evident. The situation also promoted a growing sense of disillusionment and an awareness of the past, when Indian centres were thriving creators of new and fruitful ideas in various fields. K.M. Munshi in Gujarat founded a fairly large centre called Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, publishing affordable paperbacks on various aspects of Indian culture and, to a lesser extent, Indian learning. But it rigidly excluded any Muslim contribution and defined Bharatiya Vidya in terms of Vedic and Puranic knowledge and arts. Still, its publications did not reek of the kind of Hindutva that would seem to raise the temperature to a hothouse level. But it was obviously a construction that had in mind the veiled sense of a threat from the West. Western ideas, it seemed to suggest, harmed Indian interests by making people more “materialistic.” It never seemed to face the question that, given the level of poverty and deprivation in the country, only the affluent could choose to be less “materialistic.” To pursue the matter further, it put a smokescreen before the grim clash of entrenched Hindu feudal interests and those of an aggressive modern capitalist culture that prized individual enterprise and merit above inherited privilege and traditional status. Much later it turned out to have been a blind alley without any future, for it is nearly forgotten today…