Indian knowledge systems are either worshipped or dismissed. Two recent books suggest a way past these knee-jerk responses. They remind us why we must take Indian knowledge systems seriously. They also instruct us on how to — and how not to — do so.

Indian Knowledge Systems, or IKS, is the buzz word in Indian higher education these days. Every university is busy organising some IKS-related event and posting its photographs on the website. Academics are desperate to discover or invent a connection between their work and IKS. This newly discovered fondness is not organic but spawned by state patronage. The Ministry of Education has created an IKS Division to “rejuvenate and mainstream Indian Knowledge Systems for the contemporary world”. The government is pushing for it, pumping money and incentivising career mobility. Standing for IKS is also, for some academics, a not-so-subtle way of registering an ideological affinity with the present regime. The result is predictable. Thus, we have a flood of publications, mediocre if not worse, that do not serve either knowledge or India, let alone Indian knowledge systems.

This state-sponsored farce cannot but invite a reaction. Among advocates of “scientific temper”, it reinforces the notion that traditional knowledge is nothing but unscientific mumbo-jumbo. Critics of the caste order see this as an attempt to impose a Brahminic worldview. Critics of the government view this as an attempt to cloak an authoritarian regime with false national pride. The greater the advocacy of IKS, the greater the ridicule for the very idea of Indian knowledge in liberal and progressive circles. Such a rejection of IKS is a serious intellectual and political mistake.

It is historically absurd to believe in the........

© Indian Express