“I know you have thought about this a lot, can you give it a thought and help design a curriculum for IKS for teachers?”, was a question posed by a head of prestigious Teacher’s training college recently.
I started with a disclaimer, “Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) is a term of contradiction. What constitutes the understanding of ‘Indian’, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘System’ as used today are all defined by the Western society from the 15th century onwards. IKS as it is currently used and articulated is either a continuation or a reaction to the colonial construct of these concepts.
Let me explain –
Indian – we all know that the term is of recent origin historically and came from outsiders to refer to people living between the river Indus and Himalayan range, all the way down to the ocean. Only since Independence, we have started to recognize ourselves as Indians and it has taken half a century for that to sink in. In the IKS narrative, diverse, and rich civilizational Indian legacy often gets enjoined with the Nation State. Unlike other parts of the world where either a religion or a language or shared history or race becomes a binding factor, Indian civilizational identity with its vast diversity is very difficult for any one to internalize. So, when we say, “Indian” many of us carry our own idea of what is Indian and all of them are valid and none of them are perhaps all encompassing. This is the first challenge of IKS formulation.
Knowledge – what constitutes Indian knowledge is bigger challenge. At a superficial level – in which majority of our universities and colleges, currently forced to include IKS prefer to operate – Indian Knowledge is a series of texts of Indian origin that are equated to similar knowledge streams of western origin. De-colonization as a political term has gained popularity since decades, but just replacing content of one kind with content of another kind does not make it Indian Knowledge. There is a deeper cognitive challenge as to what all the ways of cognition that constitutes Indian Knowledge, the term ‘epistemic injustice’ is used here and quite a bit of work has happened. However, this is far more difficult for universities and colleges to adopt to.
System – this term is also problematic in the context of a living knowledge. Systems thinking emerged from the post-Industrial revolution world and increased in adoption during the automation and computerization period. Fundamentally it defines boundaries and studies processes within the boundaries. Knowledge of a living society, constantly interacting with outside world, adopting, changing and evolving defies any attempt to systematize. So, where do you draw the boundaries of a knowledge that flows like a stream? So, scholars have adopted the codified knowledge as ‘systems’ and that which is not codified, as ‘vernacular’ or ‘informal’ or ‘people’s knowledge’ or ‘oral’ traditions, or many other ways in which these are termed. Even within this there are problems as all codified knowledge too acknowledges that they are but documentation of practices already in vogue.
Over and above this, currently Universities and colleges have additional structural problems as well. If you are true to IKS in terms of its content and pedagogy, your other subjects teaching would be hypocrisy. If you teach IKS within the limited 30 hours of a semester as a ‘value added’ course, you are doing injustice to a civilizational legacy. You only end up strengthening unnecessary pride attached to knowledge that is of no utilitarian value to the students.
Does it mean IKS is way too complex to learn? On the contrary, it is easiest to learn as a lived experience. Students are living in a Indian Knowledge society. Every day around them ordinary people are evolving newer knowledges, synthesizing and adopting some new ideas with their old ones, knowledge that you studied as a text yesterday is being implemented and enhanced today already.
So, suggestion to colleges and universities – pick the purpose of IKS for your students.
• If you are doing it because government has forced it on you and want to do it without hindering your other curriculum and really don’t care for this – at least teach some yoga and wellness care as part of IKS, it will be useful someday or other.
• If you are serious but still need to adopt it within the existing structure – don’t chew more than the students can swallow; pick 2-3 topics with an overview and ensure that the students are given additional pathways for knowledge pursuit.
• If you are more serious than that and do really want your students to learn IKS – spend quality time orienting yourself through learning from practitioners, organize FDP if need be, blend it within the regular curriculum apart from the independent pursuit.
To go back to the question at the beginning of the article, yes, I did develop a framework and a curriculum for teachers on IKS, having started with this disclaimer. If you are interested to adopt it for your teachers or others, do get in touch, would be happy to work along with you and help evolve the same.
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