Neo-liberalsim: Its impact on Education and the Role of Educators Today

              Neo-liberalsim: Its impact on Education and the Role of Educators Today

 This year marks the 56^th Teachers’ day honouring the birthday of the great philosopher, statesman and teacher of teachers, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. It was he who said “instead of celebrating my  birthday it would be my proud privilege if 5 September is observed as Teachers’ Day. It was in 1962 that the first Teachers’ day was observed. 55 years have passed and India at 2017 is vastly different from what it was in1962. A new generation with new aspirations, new faith, new concerns, new goals, new interests, new approach to life and new ways of living is reminded of the Teacher of Teachers on this day.

 We are no longer the Nehruvian age with its focus on  a socialistic pattern of society. The present age is known as the Neo-liberal age and the word ‘neo-liberalism’ marks an idea that has brought about a shift in our perspectives on all issues that have a direct bearing on day to day life of every individual. Neo- liberalism  has almost a universal appeal irrespective of the tags appended to a nation, as developed or developing or under developed nation. This is a change that has taken roots in the 21^st century  and it is therefore imperative that we understand the implications of neo- liberalism  and its impact on education. It is worth recalling the wise statement of Radhakrishnan in this context. He said: “Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal civilization of the world.” The present article is an attempt to take cognizance of the change of a new world order and to make education continue to serve the cause of humanity in our times.

 Neo- liberalism is an old term that dates back to the 1930s and it has been resurrected in our current politics. It is a paradox that neo liberalism is not a revival of liberalism but it is a revolt against liberalism as it is a return to conservatism.   The post liberalization period in India in the ‘90s of the last century coincided with the third phase of globalization which made it easy for money to move from one market to another depending on which market provided maximum returns on investment. India moved from socialist rhetoric to join global capitalism. The liberalization of economy from the early’90s with assistance from IMF and World bank brought India to embrace capitalism.  The country saw the involvement of corporate money power in Indian politics today as a result of the liberalization of the Indian economy twenty five years ago.

After the 2008 financial crisis, neo-liberalism became a pejorative term criticizing the establishment for conceding its authority to market forces, thereby widening the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, giving rise to loathsome inequality. According to Stephen Metcalf, “The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but it properly names the reigning ideology of our era – one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human.” These are no doubt words of severe indictment.  Though a trifle exaggerated and hugely biased, there is a kernel of truth in Metcalf’s indictment as it has brought about a new way of looking at society and looking at individuals as  “profit and loss calculators”. Metcalf states “neo-liberalism is not simply a name for pro-market policies, but also a name for a premise that, quietly, has come to regulate all we practise and believe: that competition is the only legitimate organizing principle for human activity.”

The term neo-liberalism advocates privatization and free competition that would lead to excellence.  As an ideology, at the core it functions as the guarantor of our liberty, giving us the opportunity to raise our talent and potential and strive for excellence.  The idea behind free trade was to encourage competition that would lead to greater availability of goods at a more competitive price and thereby protect the poor against the rich. But the unfortunate truth is neo-liberalism and the monopolies it has encouraged has bred more of illiberalism and bigotry. What was intended to be a revolution in thought, has turned out to be an assertion and imposition of uniformity as demanded and dictated to by the corporate sectors. When the corporate interest is involved, it is the only one that matters and all other interests are set aside.

There is no denying the fact that Indian economy picked up post Liberalization, and there has been a huge increase in investments.  But the corrosive effect of neo liberalism has fallen on  education which is seen in the corporatization of education. Henry Giroux of Pennsylvania university explains how  “civic discourse has given way to the language of commercialization, privatization, and deregulation and that, within the language and images of corporate culture, citizenship is portrayed as an utterly privatized affair that produces self-interested individuals”.  This is a far cry from the core meaning and purpose of higher education which is to make young people engage with citizenship. What had been the earlier practice in universities and colleges of developing democratic, pluralistic and thinking individuals by inculcating the spirit of  unity among diversity has now been given up in favour of promoting self-centred individuals in pursuit of jobs for their personal progress.  In the era of neo-liberalism, there is a perceptible shift in the concerns and issues related to education. Katharyne Mitchell observes “This shift is directly linked with and helps to facilitate the entrenchment of neo-liberalism as it supports a privatization agenda, reduces the costs of social reproduction for the government, and aids in the constitution of subjects oriented to individual survival and/or success in the global economy.”  What is now mooted is turning out students to serve market forces and not as responsible citizens who can think and deliberate on issues that  relate to the welfare of fellow individuals and the society they live in. This can be best exemplified by an early Greek play The Clouds by Atistophanes( as cited by Martha Nussbaum in Cultivating Humanity,her book on Higher education) where a young man in search of learning  is confronted with two alternatives- (1) the traditional, conservative thinking on education which placed emphasis on discipline, memorisation and implicit acceptance of all that was taught, without questioning and (2)opposed to that, the new learning established by Socrates with its emphasis on learning to think analytically  the theories, norms  and concepts that  had come down through the ages and  on developing a questioning and critical mind to enquire into issues that related to Man and society. Those who belonged to the old school insisted on a disciplined approach to learning so that they evolved as robotic members of a well established, paternalistic and domineering, authoritarian society while the new school of  Socrates encouraged independent thinking, heedless of authority. Socrates Academy was burnt down and he was put on trial on charges of sedition. 

We are in a similar situation, caught up between the discipline imposed by market forces to serve their regulated commercial world and the freedom to debate, argue, analyze and act in the interest of the welfare of society and fellow beings.

Our present day education is  torn between a neo liberal state  that advocates uniformity and discipline with no scope for debate and argument as against a new orientation towards independent thinking and  linking education with issues that have a direct bearing on society, citizenship and generation of ideas to suit the new age. The resulting conflict has in a large measure contributed to apathy in teaching and total absence of interest and enthusiasm for learning. It has adversely impacted the teacher and the taught. This is seen more in higher education than in school education, though there are many other factors that have affected the latter.

 Neo liberalism paradoxically is a swing way from liberalism and towards conservatism that opposes change and innovation and prefers maintaining the existing, traditional order. The binary conflict between historians of the right and the historians of the left is a case in point. It has left young minds in confusion. It is sad that we have given in to the maxim ‘might is right’ and whichever party is in power thinks it is its right to impose history as seen from its point of view to the total suppression of the other. Earlier the progressives had overdone their ideology. It is time now for the conservatives to hit back. We  ee this binary conflict between the right and the left in the selection of texts for Humanities and Social sciences where ideology is the deciding factor. The scrapping of the essay of the celebrated author A.K.Ramanujan on Ramayana from B.A(Hons) course by Delhi university has conveyed to the students the wrong message that only the ideology that is supported by the majority will be accommodated. It is best to recall what Radhakrishnan said “Books are the means by which we build bridges across cultures.” The balance between the right and the left is severely dented and needs to be restored in our education. The present day crisis in education is one of non accommodation. There is no one ideology that is utopian in its reach. There has to be space for different ideologies to co-exist and this in turn promotes in the students objectivity, critical thinking and analytical reasoning to arrive at a well informed interpretation and judgement. The teachers whatever their ideological leanings are, they should try to give comprehensive lectures that present the different interpretations. I read about a brilliant young history teacher who introduced Indian history to her graduate students by speaking about a train journey. The passengers in a compartment had settled down when the train started. As the train reached the next station a few more passengers made their way into the compartment,  seeking a share of the space enjoyed by the early passengers. There was initial resentment and resistance and the seats were shared. This got repeated in the next stop and more passengers joined in. It was push and squeeze to occupy and share the limited seat. As the train chug chugged its way, the passengers settled down within the cramped space, started talking, opening their food packets and sharing their meals with one another. When the train arrived at its destination, the passengers before alighting, exchanged addresses and contact numbers to continue their friendship in the times to come. The students understood that this is the history of India fighting for its territory with Muslim invaders and Christian traders and emerging as a strong secular India accommodating  all those who were not Hindus.  The teacher in the neo- liberal age cannot allow his personal ideological bias to come in the way of an objective presentation of facts. Radhakrishnan believed that "teachers should be the best minds in the country". True teachers, he said,  are those who help us think for ourselves.

The problem singularly that is of India is its humungous population. As per the demographic profile of our country, youth constitutes one fifth of the total population. There is a great deal of pressure on the universities, colleges and schools to accommodate all eligible young students in these institutions. The PPP model (Private-public partnership) is indeed a welcome model. The private sector has to be an accommodating partner to share the vast growing number of students. But this is not happening. The fees are high in private institutions and beyond the reach of the poor.  Even in schools the fiat from the government for a compulsory 20% intake of the poor has not worked satisfactorily as there is no attempt to bring a genuine integration of students coming from economically and culturally weak backgrounds. The social divide has only widened and deepened. The private institutions have the resources to give quality education while the government institutions have to cater mainly to all classes that are not affluent and therefore left out.

The shrill orchestration to ban private universities is not the solution. Some of the universities are imparting quality education(not all private universities are good; most of them are profit making commercial ventures) as they have the funds to provide the best of facilities in their campus. As the Tamil proverb says , it is easy to demolish a nest than build a new one. Let us not make this mistake. What the government should do is to facilitate entry of students to top universities where the fees are also high. Instead of wasteful expenditure in building new colleges, new buildings, new auditoria etc, the government should ask the universities to identify brilliant students during the last two years of their school and give them provisional admission subject to their scoring the requisite eligible grades. These students should be provided scholarship to pursue their studies in the best private/government institution. This “Catch them young” strategy is followed in many top UK universities.
Government should facilitate MOOC(Massive Online Open Courses) to make learning material accessible to a vast number of students via web. Teachers have to be specially trained to prepare these online courses. The old form of teaching is good in a small class, but where there is an urgent need to provide for a humungous number of youth population, teaching with technology has to be insisted upon. New recruits to faculty positions have to be given training in using technology for imparting instruction.

Today there is a lot of talk about skill development and universities vie with one another to showcase their potential by introducing skill based courses as a part of the academic curricula. This has resulted in turning out graduates with no academic learning and no skill competency. What universities have to do is to enlist the private sector- the industry, manufacturing units, corporate offices, hospitals etc and (if need be), mandate them to take graduate students for skill training. We can follow the Japanese model where the student spends the first half of the day in the college/university and the second half with industrial units for skill training.  This will ensure that academic standards are maintained while the student gets adequate skills to be employable.

The role of the teachers in the neo liberal age has necessarily to change. Teachers can no longer be presenters of facts. In the age of internet, facts are available at the press of the keyboard. They have to be interpreters of facts and should arouse the curiosity in the students to learn more. They have to be creative teachers who have to find innovative methods to uphold the interest of the students. There is no point in complaining that the students have no interest in study; they come to colleges to pass time”etc.  The fault lies with the academic community as the lectures are uninspiring, pedantic and mechanical, often far removed from the interest of  the new generation which constantly asks for insta-satisfaction a la insta-coffee. Less lecturing hours, more mentoring time and more participatory sessions where the student is expected to present his views. Universities are not schools with a monotonous time table. Students have to be given time for self study and lectures have to be crisp, short and knowledge capsules. Time for a redefinition of the role of a teacher where s/he is more of a catalyst , activating the knowledge cell of the students.

Neo liberalism cannot be wished away.  True to the history of Ages, there will be a continuous cycle of ideologies. The socialist ideology has now been replaced by the neo-liberal ideology. It will run its course before it is replaced. But the goal of the universities remains the same. It is a place for generation of ideas. Let universities be the repository of ideas and not a crucible for ideologies. Neo liberalism has its positives and its negatives which is true of all ideologies. Universities have this problematic task of sifting the plusses from the minuses. Let the positives of competition, reaching after personal excellence, high aspiration for self- centred progress be synergized with social consciousness, empathy for fellow humanity and development of the society to make education serve the interests of the new world order.

In conclusion it will worth revisiting a few of the cardinal statements of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan that have universal and all time validity:

“The end-product of education should be a free creative man, who can battle against  historical circumstances and adversities of nature.  ”

  “We must recall humanity to those moral roots from which both order and freedom spring.”

  “ A literary genius, it is said, resembles all, though no one resembles him.  ”

    “A life of joy and happiness is possible only on the basis of knowledge and science.”

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Welcome the Future

                                                         Welcome the Future.

The tragic train derailment leaving 24 dead and more than one hundred and fifty injured was the fourth major accident this year and the third in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Even as I write this piece, I learn that there has been another derailment in UP leaving 74 injured and four of them critically. Last November, a crash in Uttar Pradesh had killed 150 people. The statistics reveal that more than 250 people were killed across the country in train accidents in 2015 and 2016. For the media and the politicians, ever in search of news that triggers blame game, such an accident cannot be a lost opportunity to indulge in “TU,TU, Mein, Mein” (arguments and bickering) in the midst of grief, distress and suffering that they must perforce refer to even if briefly in the most solemn voice.  The spokespersons of the ruling establishment point to the accidents that had happened during the Congress regime in the past while those in the opposition bay for the resignation of the Railways Minister even when they know that he is a dynamic, hardworking minister, spotlessly clean who had earned great praise from the time he was  power minister in the  Vajpayee government between 1999 and 2004.

This cacaphonic debate on the TV channels is a recurrent and quotidian soap opera in which the ruling party blames its opponent(s) and vice versa for something bad or unfortunate event rather than attempting to seek a solution. While the spokespersons of the ruling party mock at the opposition’s attack with the stock phrase ,“who is calling the kettle black”( though today,  it is not kosher to use such a racist phrase) the opposition relentlessly questions the ruling party’s credentials to find a solution for the ills  it claims  to have inherited from their predecessors. The anchor also joins  to pontificate on what ails the Railways till it is time to switch to yet another sensational breaking news to start a fresh debate.

We are certainly the argumentative lot who are celebrated for our words and not for action. We have meandered through seventy years; we have done well in several areas, failed miserably in many others and have chug-chugged at snail’s pace in a few key sectors. But to say that seventy years had been a dark period in our history when the country witnessed nothing but total eclipse and sunshine is only now in the last three years  is not only ignorance but an exaggerated notion about the potential, capability and self importance of the ruling government.  So is the attack on the new government’s three year record which has to its credit some major achievements but also  many questions to answer for.  No government is a total cipher, no government is a total success. The mismatched balance between success and failure tilts the voters to favour or discard the different parties during an election. It is sad that great men like our first prime Minister Pt. Nehru is  gradually waning  into oblivion without any gratitude and appreciation for his contribution to making Indian democracy survive and setting up the roadmap for the establishment of a scientific, industrialized modern India. It is sad that in the modern pantheon of great leaders, Shastriji and his clarion call of Jai jawan, Jai kisan do not find mention. The current ruling party spokespersons remember Mrs. Gandhi only on June 26 to observe emergency day and not for the victorious war fought under her brave and dynamic leadership to liberate Bangladesh and show India to President Nixon that we can fight our wars without American assistance. Even the noble Vajpayee is never mentioned today for his great efforts to promote peace between Pakistan and India. Rajiv Gandhi is remembered only for Bofors and not for ushering in the technological era while Dr. Man Mohan Singh is no longer seen as the architect of Modern Indian economy but that Singh is King of scams. On the other hand, day in and day out for all things happening-right from an innocuous opening ceremony of a road, PM is projected as a visionary, the architect and builder of new India. Where is that new India and when is it going to materialize are questions not to be aired. Is Swachh Bharat a utopian ideal as in the last three years have shown no signs of becoming a reality? I Does “Make in India”, however nationalistic it sounds,  enforce protectionism  as a counter measure to economic liberalism? No questions to be asked for fear of being labeled anti-national.

It is a pity that the PM who has scored a landslide victory in the 2014 elections o his single effort should now be buttressed by his loyal minions who constantly weave a halo round him saying that he is the leader as predicted by Nostrodamus to lead India to great heights,  and to fulfill that prophecy he is the man who works 24 hours( as though the previous Prime Ministers not only in India but leaders in other parts of the world were lesser mortals who could not and  did not  put in so much work), he is the man who works without taking a vacation( showcasing his foreign trips as a drain on his time and energy), and whose name works as magic to coin new terms such as  Modimonetisation, Modinomics, Moditva(what it means, one does not know),Modirashtra Modisarkar etc. His sycophants have taken three major steps in these last three years-  demolish political icons of the past, erase history and diversity and build a personality cult, all in the name of Narendra Modi. Those who are critical of some of the Modi  policies are instantaneously relegated as anti national and if unfortunately they manage to come into limelight or have their voices heard, there will be CBI raid of their homes and  cases filed against them – cases which do not last for more than 24 hours .  However the intention is to damage  the reputation of these ideological opponents and the news about their  complicity in corruption is forgotten till they dare to raise their heads again to come into spotlight.

The question is does Modi need these million minions to prop him up as the ‘avatar purush’ with a mission to destroy evil?  This, inter alia, implicates all Indians except Modi and his minions as forces of evil who have to be exorcized by Modi’s band of fawners and flatterers. Modi is a good communicator- not asilver tongued orator like PT.Nehru or Atal Behari Vajpayee,  but more like a demagogue who can make impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of people and his oratory gets him votes especially when he  is seen as a contrast to the frail, weak and intellectual talk of the earlier Prime Minister. He is dynamic, unpredictable, risk taker, and impatient of  opposition- qualities that the world applauds in a leader. He may not be like Trump in a China shop, but like him rides roughshod over those that come in his way. He can charm his way to greet Nawaz Shariff on his birthday,h e can bear hug Obama and Trump in quick succession without blinking, he can be stiff and unbending before his opponents. He has assiduously followed the maxim  that  “in times of crisis, extremist forces and populist forces have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings- feelings of fear.” “(Jose Manuel Barroso)

Does Modi need to pull down all the greats of the Congress party( with the sole exception of a fellow Gujarati, Sardar Patel)to hoist himself up? Does he need to lambast all that had been achieved in the last seventy years as of no consequence and claim that his last three years are all that matter? Does he need the services of his loyalists to claim that all that is done is by Modi and Modi only and by no one else? Does he need to project his picture (he may say it is the work of his admirers who want to share their picture with him) in all newspapers, in almost all pages to be in the eyes of his people so that he is not a victim of the proverb “Out of sight, out of mind”.

It is sad that when a PM of his stature should let his guard down and project his deep seated prejudice  as seen in his Congress mukht Bharat and vipakshi mukht Bharat. Does not he realize that for a democracy to be alive, vipaksh leaders have to be there( even if Congress has become irrelevant, thanks to his constant caviling and carping  about the Congress).  The sad part is neither he nor his IT cell nor his millions of minions remember what George Santayana had said; “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past and we must respect the past remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.” The BJP will do well to reflect on these words of Santayana and welcome the future that is to be built on the past.

Conflict and Peace

                                                              Conflict and Peace

It was interesting to read a prediction by a mystic who claims to have accurately foretold Donald Trump's presidency that the exact date for the start of World War III will be any time between May 13 and October 13, 2017. Whether this prediction will come true is a million dollar question! The way Trump has been tweeting and tooting his own trumpet makes it a close possibility. North Korea is challenging the military might of US and US is retaliating with threat that says  “better get  your act together or you are going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in … trouble”. Whether North Korea’s  announcement of a detailed plan to launch missiles aimed at the waters off the coast of US Pacific territory of Guam is bluster and bombast, the truth is,  it is trying to get Trumpet’s goat and has succeeded as Trump’s incendiary remarks of fire and fury testify. We have in our own backyard the Chinese with their atavistic nationalism currently engaged in psychological war with India with frequent threat of military conflict  issued through its media if India does not withdraw its troops from Doklam. It almost commands obedience from India saying “there cannot be two Suns in the sky” and “one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers”. We have on our Western border a perpetual threat from Pakistan with the possible danger of a maniac pressing the nuclear button any time.. The ISIS has been running amok seeking total surrender of the world to the rule of its Caliphate. The only silver lining amidst this war cry is everyone is afraid of the weapons of mass destruction and no one really wants a war except for those few hawks who live by the sword and do not expect to perish by it. The majority of population all over the world wish to live in peace, but powerless to stop the sabre- rattlers whose aggression and intimidation, complemented by jingoistic nationalistic  fervor and religious fanaticism  pose the biggest threat for the survival of humanity.

No one wants war, but ironically human beings are forever wired up for fight. What we see, what we hear and what we read testify to the fact that fight is in our DNA and without fight, life seems an empty drag. We are perpetually in a conflict zone with fellow beings as our fighting gene is buttressed by our personal ego and self importance. Everyone wants his/her word as the last word and brooks no opposition to it. In recent times we do not stop with verbal duel or with coming to blows, but we take the next step towards manslaughter or homicide. The first two pages of any newspaper that deals with city news is full of  murder most foul, revenge killing, road rage and  obnoxious sexual assault and ravishment of the opposite sex . Conflict has moved farther towards brutal violence and heinous crimes.

Conflict engagement is a genetic trait of the human race. No workplace is without a conflict. No home is without a conflict. No debate in Parliament or on television and watched by millions, is without a conflict. But all these conflicts stop with verbal duels rarely descending to physical skirmishes and murders. We see partisan news anchors jumping onto the debates,  shouting and screaming at the participants who are not on the side of the establishment. In India, barring a couple of knowledgeable and balanced interviewers like  Karan Thapar and  Ravish Kumar, a majority of the anchors are arrogant, uncivil, with bloated ego as though they are omniscient and omnipotent to heckle and dismiss views that are in opposition to what they assert (or told to assert by the  owners of the TV channels) . They will be on the channel enrollment as long as they echo their political master’s voice. One is astounded to see the participants belonging to the opposition camp subjected to the insults heaped on them by the anchors who are barely in their late thirties but holding forth on all issues in a hectoring voice.  If these anchors are so seemingly knowledgeable and wise, they should have been in the Indian Administrative or Indian Judicial Service.  I suspect they must be paid humungous salaries to sit in air conditioned comfort with the sole task of heaping quotidian dosage of insults on their guests who come from the opposition benches. I am also sure the victims- who are ready to stick out their neck to be guillotined, must be paid equally large fees to receive daily these insults from young anchors. The conflict often reaches verbal crescendo that ends with a cacophony of sounds that deafen our ears.

We have arrived at a stage when we yearn for peace and quietness in our homes wanting the TV channels to observe a modicum of propriety and  engage people in  intelligent and healthy debates.  I distinctly recall my professors five decades back, who taught us by their gentle and polite responses how to differ and accommodate divergent views. One of the memorable phrases used by them was “yes, maybe, you are right. But this is how I see….” and thereby give the students the probability of being right. I have never heard any professor assert:  “No, what you say is wrong”. I experienced the same broad mindedness in foreign universities, when senior professors were open to views of students coming from a different background and different culture. They were not tolerant which premises a certain degree of superiority, but they were willing to see some truth in the student’s perception. This is what Goethe wrote : “Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition"

I thought about the change in our behaviour and speech, turning us from being an argumentative Indian to becoming an assertive Indian. Accommodation, adjustment and adaption – the cardinal three ‘A’s have been replaced by intolerance, inflexibility and  inexorablity- the three  ‘I’s  which stem from the egotistic  fourth  ‘I’. This is why the number of divorces is on the increase today as the three’A’s have been overshadowed  by the three  ‘I’s which,  in turn, are subsumed by the  egoistic ‘I’ .  It is ironical that today sons and daughters celebrate the golden jubilee or silver jubilee of their parents’ wedding anniversary but stay single with failed marriage. The tragic news of a young IAS officer committing suicide due to constant feud between his wife and mother is a devastating example of maladjustment and inflexibility between two persons.  In fact marriage is the best institution to educate young men and women to cultivate the three ‘A’s and accept responsibility for the success of their marriage and family togetherness.  But unfortunately, marriage is now more of an experiment as young people ,forever  in search of personal independence, enter wedlock with the idea that if it does not work there is the option of walking out. The sanctity of marriage has been reduced to getting a license for sexual union and therefore does not go beyond it.  Similarly in the political arena in India in particular and in general, true of the entire world, the conflict is intense between the right and the left and both unyielding to accommodate the positives on either side. In India, the bitter conflict is seen in rewriting history and taking license with facts, just because the left historians all these years had failed to give any leeway to the rightist’s point of view. The insistence on unilateral view – right or left deprives the young minds of an objective and analytical understanding of history or for that matter of any theory or ideology.

Conflict, thy name is Man( used in the generic sense to include woman). But let that conflict remain true to our Indian trait of being an argumentative Indian, an apt phrase coined  by Nobel Laureate  Amartya Sen.  Central to his notion of India, as the title suggests, is the long tradition of argument and public debate, of intellectual pluralism and generosity that informs India's history. Professor Sen illustrates his concept of the argumentative Indian with  examples from the teachings and lives of Indian emperors like Akbar and Ashoka and from the epics, The Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He speaks of as an inclusive philosophy rather than an exclusionist, divisive religion. This is the correct view of Hinduism, mature and magnanimous to accommodate dissenting views and 'even profound scepticism'. This is a “capacious view of a broad and generous Hinduism, which contrasts sharply with the narrow and bellicose versions that are currently on offer, led particularly by parts of the Hindutva movement”.

 We may not be able to stop Trump’s bellicose cry nor China’s war hysteria. We cannot stop ISIS in its destructive killings. We cannot find a permanent solution to Pakistan’s vengeful attacks on India  nor to Afghanistan’s continuous misery in its fight against Taliban. It is a pity we have more hawks as leaders today and very few peaceniks among them who prefer negotiations to armed conflict with other nations.

If our principles and faith in democracy are genuine, then it is the duty of all Indians to explore the possibility of people to people relationship that can restore sanity from hysterical war mongering. One Trump cannot and does not destroy the world with war hysteria, one Osama or one Hafeez Saeed cannot win a proxy war. The world does not depend on Trumps and Hafees Saeeds to survive.  We were fortunate to be inspired by  Mahatma Gandhi to look at our neighbours with malice towards none and love towards all. Though Gandhiji is no longer there and no new Gandhi has emerged, we are privileged  to have Gandhi’s lineage that can inspire millions of us  to establish mutual and friendly relationship in terms of trade, exchange of cultural artists, litterateurs, cinema, sports and academic scholars with Pakistan on the Western border, with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sikkim ,extending to China on the eastern border, with Srilanka and other southeast Asian nations on the southern side and Nepal and Afghanistan on the northern sphere. The spirit of SAARC and the Nehruvian principles of Panchsheel have to be revived to ensure peace at least in the subcontinent. It is time to say ‘No’ to hawks and say ‘Yes’ to doves.

But what is more important is to set our home in order.  The present divisiveness and political acrimony between the ruling party and the opposition, the bitter polarization between the Leftists and the Rightists, the no holds barred personal attacks  on those who profess and practice a different ideology, the conflicts arising out of different groups trying to ride herd on  each other, the deep schism  between the haves and the have-nots ,besides the carry -over from  the past of social and religious divide- have made deep inroads into our psyche making us forget  the concept of a pluralist India that had shaped the freedom movement. It is essential to restore harmony among the different sections of people and bring an Indian homogeneity through the heterogeneity that has always  been the strength of India and which was evidenced duringthe Independence struggle.

India can show the way. The sankalp or the oath that Prime Minister Modi has asked Indians to take on the 70^th anniversary of independence should be to restore the three  ‘A’s in our scheme of things and seek peace with neighbours through a recognition of the basic human instincts of empathy and love, friendship and compassion embedded in the genes of every man and woman who belong to the Homo Sapiens race. Can we take a pledge to say ‘No’ to conflict and  ‘Yes’ to peace ?