Opinion Attack on foreign students for offering namaz at Gujarat University: Bigotry’s new normal

As a teacher, what worries me is the organised assault on our universities or the constant fall of centres of higher learning. Think of the level of psychic poisoning that has afflicted young minds. Do these attackers at Gujarat University retain the spirit of studentship and open-mindedness? Has anybody ever taught them what, say, Rabindranath Tagore thought of the university as a confluence of cultures and traditions evolving through the aesthetics of love and wonder? Has anybody taught them the deeper meaning of Jawaharlal Nehru’s “discovery of India” —a secular modernist looking at India’s cross-cultural/cross-religious traditions with a sense of gratitude? Have they ever learned anything from the music of John Lennon and Bob Dylan, the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi and Pablo Neruda, or the religiosity of Thich Nhat Hanh and Jiddu Krishnamurti? Or, are they just goons, the champions of some sort of xenophobic “Hindu nationalism”, trained and pampered by the ambitious political class?

No wonder, because of this absence of studentship or humanistic education, they could not tolerate a group of Muslim students offering namaz at night during Ramadan inside the university hostel. With sticks, knives and catchy “nationalist” slogans, these self-proclaimed protectors of “Hindu culture”, as reports indicate, stormed the hostel, vandalised their rooms, and possibly tried to make their political bosses happy.

In fact, what frightens me further is that an incident of this kind, far from being an exception, is becoming the new normal in the political/cultural landscape we inhabit in contemporary India. Well, the cops can arrest a couple of attackers; the university bureaucracy can appoint an “enquiry committee”; and the administration or politically appointed academic managers might come forward with a shallow or mere technical solution— say, the installation of CCTV cameras in the campus!

However, unless as concerned citizens, teachers, students and public intellectuals, we come forward, assert the importance of civic virtues like the spirit of cosmopolitanism, cross-cultural dialogue, and libertarian education as the fusion of mental horizons, it will be exceedingly difficult to resist this rot, and save our schools, colleges and universities from the virus of the prevalent toxic culture, or a culture corrupted by loud gestures, narcissistic aggression and non-thinking/non-reflexive crowd behaviour.

The much-hyped New Education Policy (NEP 2020) is filled with grand ideals —from holistic education to critical thinking. And we have also been reminded of the richness of our civilisational heritage or our cultural and knowledge traditions. And our Prime Minister is never tired of giving us yet another grand dream — India emerging as a vishwaguru. Is it the time to open our eyes, see beyond the rhetoric, and think seriously about the huge gap between the slogan and the practice?

No, India can’t become a vishwaguru if authentic patriotism is replaced by xenophobic nationalism, young minds are transformed into either atomised and market-friendly careerists (look at our heavily pampered IITs and IIMs) or misdirected/ violent hyper-nationalists (look at the recent incident at the Gujarat University), and our schools/colleges/universities are repeatedly asked to follow the “official” line, and avoid any debate, discussion, pedagogic practice and research that can unsettle the status quo.

Avijit Pathak writes on culture and education