'Indianisation' of Syllabi is Hollowing Out Knowledge in Our Universities
Apoorvanand | 31 December 2025 | The Wire
Knowledge – its very disciplines – are today locked in a struggle for survival on university campuses in India. It is a bloodless war, but no less brutal for that. Most people in India remain blissfully unaware of this conflict and carry on with their business. On one side stand those who defend knowledge, armed with nothing but their training, their discipline, and their commitment to intellectual integrity. On the other side are the invaders, wielding a far more lethal weapon: nationalism, sharpened into its Hindutva form.
The latest dispatches from this battlefield tell us that the standing committee of the academic council of Delhi University has asked the Departments of Economics and History to reconsider their curricula. In the Economics syllabus, the unit that has provoked particular ire is titled “Gender and the Economy.” Even within this, it is the sub-unit “Crime and Gender” that has most angered certain influential members of the committee. Their objections are twofold. First, they ask: What possible connection can gender have with the study of economics or the economy? Second, why should crimes related to gender be discussed at all? This, they insist, lies outside the domain of economics.