Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
This is a debate that is required, may be – set off, among other things, by the review of school textbooks in India – revolving around questions like whether young minds should be exposed to divisive and violent phases of the nation’s past.
On the sides was also a comparison between Western Knowledge attributed to Scientific Temper and Eastern Thought rooted in Traditional Wisdom and the implicit suggestion that they represented the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ ways of looking at things.
The debate creates geographical and cultural divides in knowledge which are irrational in themselves because knowledge – unlike ‘information’ – is an integral concept applicable to humanity at large.
It is not difficult to imagine that universal knowledge would unite and not divide humanity. ‘Knowledge’ was always meant to be ‘spread’ – unless it fell in the category of secrets that were maintained for the cause of national security or information that had to be kept confidential till such time as was needed for declaring its ownership under the law of Patents in the interest of economic security of the country.
The advent of the IT revolution – with instant communication as its outcome – has enabled a complete bridging of the geographical divide of information and the globalisation of business has further put a stamp on the universalisation of knowledge.
Knowledge enforces transparency. The cultural values of India promoted respect for thinkers, adherence to human welfare and sharing of knowledge for the good of all.
India maintains its freedom from ‘alignments’ and supports the cause of sanity in situations of international conflict like the one created by the military confrontation between Ukraine and Russia.
India abstained from voting on anti-Russia resolutions at the UN on one hand but it also pledged its total commitment to Indo-US strategic friendship.
India has been a land of sages and that is why despite the violence of Muslim invaders it readily accepted the Sufi philosophy that attached importance to Muslim ‘saints’ and Pirs and did not succumb to extremism in the name of Islam.
‘God is one, the ways of worshipping Him could be many’.
A notion still widely prevalent in developing societies is that ‘modernisation’ meant ‘Westernisation’ and this was strengthened by the narrative that the progress of the West was mainly on account of the scientific temper of its people.
The point is proved clearly by the advent of the Information Technology revolution at the beginning of the Nineties by which time a free India had acquired the wherewithal to take a lead over the developed world of the West in this technology and emerge as a leader in IT at the global stage.
The growth of entrepreneurship, brisk pace of launch of start-ups and a sharp reduction in the seepage of funds of public schemes are new developments and they all reaffirm the fact that India as a nation could lay its own path of growth and ‘modernisation’ given a certain elevation of the standard of governance and a conscious effort to shun political compromise with fiscal discipline. If invoking the civilisational virtues of India helps this up-gradation of national output, this is welcome.
