Page 24 - EducationWorld Oct 2021

Expert Comment

Ideating an alternative

imagination

SHIV VISVANATHAN

ONTEMPORARY NEWS HEADLINES OFTEN WURs routinely show that China has
produce a standard Pavlovian response. The
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) ten universities in the Top 100 while
Cdemonstrated how dogs, fed for some time at the India has none. But there are dangers of
ring of a lab bell, would salivate regardless of whether imitating China. India has higher levels
food was served. Many latter day media headlines evoke a
similar response. of dissent and that’s important
Media headlines relating to the QS, THE and other
WUR (World University Rankings) also elicit a similar
response. The WURs routinely show that China has ten as high. Their silence over the origins of the Coronavirus
universities in the Top 100 while India has none. Publica- pandemic which started spreading from Wuhan, China,
tion of the WURs immediately provokes outrage, concern provides a perfect example of the culture of conformity
and mourning. Wailing walls spring up across the coun- and obedience which is antithetical to the spirit of en-
try: the Chinese are far ahead of us. But let us put on our quiry and debate which underpins high-quality research.
thinking caps, and as argumentative Indians let’s examine Instead of promoting mediocrity through tutorial college
the WURs. science, India, he said, should be the spearhead of an
We don’t need experts to tell us our universities are alternative imagination of higher education.
in bad shape. Even the best struggle with the economics This point is repeatedly raised in forums debating
of scarcity. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a science and technology. It’s patently clear that Chinese
leading French scientist at Bengaluru’s Raman Institute. science lacks democracy. It has little respect for dissent as
He admitted that the Chinese are productive whether it is it steamrolls towards mainstream objectives. The activist
astronomy or genetics. They assemble large Stakhanovite felt we need to upgrade science, research and the acad-
teams to pursue a programme. The papers that emerge emy but not in the direction of China or of the Kasturiran-
are competent with multiple authorships. India is differ- gan Committee report. We need to reread nature, rebuild
ent, he said, gifted with both anarchy and inefficiency. diversity and carefully define expertise. Recently as I was
However, Indian science is playful, still free while Chinese passing through Mylapore, Chennai, I traversed down a
science is dismal. According to him, in India, the tradi- Kasturirangan Road. It proved to be a dead end, symbolic
tions of Raman and Krishnan are still alive. Indian sci- perhaps of the committee’s 484-page report.
ence is not an unthinking juggernaut. Science, he argued, f course there’s need to debate teaching, research
is a value, a framework of meaning. That’s alive in India. Oand excellence in higher education. But despite the
In this context, there are dangers of imitating China. rising popularity of private universities, it’s important
Freedom and science are intertwined. This is not a nar- for government to seed education. But the State has to
row liberal belief but an issue of democratic imagination. understand the difference between science and technol-
India has higher levels of dissent and that’s important. ogy. The Modi government has no sense of the difference
One can go to a university in China and confront sheer between a rocket launch and a basic science programme.
silence about Mao’s cultural revolution. Even survivors of Thus under its education management, Bengaluru is
that era will pretend it never happened. WURs don’t mea- becoming less of a science and more technology — and
sure dissent and freedom. The league tables don’t reflect duller — city. The joy and playfulness of science is getting
absence of Anthropocene or anti-nuclear movement in lost in bureaucratic technology.
China’s academy. The best response came from a philosopher friend
An anthropologist friend queries the obsession with who avers that bad news is often good news because it
productivity in WURs which don’t accord importance prompts rethinking of fundamentals. Why respect WURs
to the diversity of problems confronting universities. At that force universities into mediocrity? “Dump Scopus
a recent conference on education at a Jesuit college in and WURs because they are Olympiads of mediocrity,”
Bengaluru, a proposition to secede from Scopus ratings he advises. Instead, he recommends playful competition
on academic grounds received considerable support. It with China, and ideating an alternative imagination of
was argued that Scopus as a standardised frame of knowl- teaching-learning and research. It is time, he says, for
edge needs revision. The anthropologist claimed that to India to “outthink China”. In my opinion, he reads WUR
upgrade our universities, we must begin with pockets of headlines with real understanding. It is time we start
excellence and seed them further. He called for an Opus dreaming and organising differently.
strategy of creativity as opposed to the Scopus banality
of productivity. When science is in doubt and solutions (Shiv Visvanathan is a member of Compost Heap, an academic think tank,
are plural, Chinese universities won’t be ranked nearly and well-known columnist)

24 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2021