New Delhi: RSS on Sunday called for "Indianising" the education system based on socio-cultural roots of the country and use it as the key to India's human development, while noting that it does not amount to "saffronisation" as propagated by some vested interests and historians.
The editorial, 'Transforming Education', in the latest issue of RSS mouthpiece 'Organiser' argued that Indianisation does not amount to "saffronisation" and accused some eminent historians of coining and abusing the term. It also attacked some "vested" interests benefiting from the British legacy in education for misleading the country on "saffronisation".
"We need to develop consensus about the need for fundamental change in our approach towards education in terms of structure and content. "People losing their 'professional' and 'intellectual' monopoly may create ruckus but Indianising education based on our socio-cultural roots is the only way to transform India's population into a human development hub," the 'Organiser' said.
The RSS mouthpiece said that it was necessary to bring this transformation by debating, discussing and fine-tuning and there is no need for a "revolutionary" change. Attacking British education system as a design to uproot Indians from their traditional knowledge system and using it for their own convenience to run the state machinery, the editorial noted that it was the root cause of high-level of trust deficit in society.
"Whenever there is a talk of transforming education in India, vested interests that benefited from the British legacy in education, start shouting about the 'saffronisation'.
Before pressing for such misleading terms, we need to debate and discuss the contour of Indianisation of education," it said.
Attacking historians, the editorial said, "The likes of Ramachandra Guhas and Romila Thapars who talked about 'change' but benefitted from the status quo are the people who coined and abused the term 'saffronisation'. Without getting into their malicious intentions, one needs to take an objective stand on connecting education to Indian realities."
It also held the British legacy of education as being responsible for being "neither here nor there". It noted that there are many graduates who are not productive and few high performing professionals are "morally and socially disconnected".
"The post-Independence education system did not produce the desired society," it said. The RSS mouthpiece also noted that all aspects of our national and social life are going through "high-level trust deficit" and by carefully analysing this scenario, the root cause of this social ill is rooted in the education system, where course correction has to take place.
"When one talks about transformation, it means there is no need for revolutionary change. In a massive country like India, debating, discussing, fine-tuning and then executing it with suitable customisations is necessary," the editorial said.
It noted that in post-Independence period, like all political and bureaucratic machinery, unfortunately the system of delivering education remained almost the same.
"The corollary of this British legacy is that we lost the treasure and techniques of our knowledge creation and application. At the same time we could not follow the path of excellence in material resource creation adopted in the Anglo-Saxon civilisation, as it was not in tune with our culture," it said.
It also said few institutions of excellence created in independent India are either a replica of some foreign institutions or design of Eurocentric ideologies who take pride in denying India's civilisational legacy.
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