How should we respond to the recent governmental push for Indian Knowledge Systems? This question lies at the heart of the article by Swati Ramanathan and Ramesh Ramanathan (‘Let’s resist easy indictments of Indian Knowledge Systems’, IE, June 8) in response to mine (State push for Indian Knowledge Systems is a farce. But dismissing them is a mistake’, IE, May 19). I am grateful for their attention despite the fact, which they correctly note, that I possess no “domain knowledge” in this field. My thinking on this subject draws upon three decades of “homeschooling”, informal learning from Professor Madhulika Banerjee, also my wife, whose life’s work has focussed on IKS, much before the expression became acceptable or fashionable. I am also grateful to Ramanathans, whose work on urban civic issues I have admired for long, for venturing into this field, as it illustrates why larger debates like this one must not be left to domain experts.

This debate needs to be opened up for wider public scrutiny. Before we do so, it is necessary to get rid of a basic misreading that runs through the Ramanathans’ critique. My article sought to question a widespread tendency among liberal and progressive circles that dismisses IKS on the suspicion that it is obscurantist, irrational and backward. I argued that it is an intellectual and political mistake to dismiss IKS, even though the present government’s motives for pushing this are dubious, its framing is distorted and the outcomes are farcical. I illustrated this point by celebrating two recent books on India’s intellectual traditions. It is astonishing, and frankly embarrassing, to see that Ramanathans present my argument as an “indictment of Indian........

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