In 2017, Betsy Devos (currently serving as the United States secretary of Education) accused the faculty members of indoctrinating students. She blamed that they force their views on students and tell them what to think. Though, the case mentioned is of USA but it has its relevance in India as well.
‘A teacher is never an ordinary person. Destruction and creation of nation, both is in his hands.’ This was rightly stated by Acharya Kautilya long ago. India has been historically a place where students are advised to see their teachers as an incarnation of God. A prevalent shloka even says that teachers are the only god for a student. But what if our god turns into a malicious personality? This is something which has happened with the majority of professors in our universities. It is only because of such professors that some universities have turned into a machine within which young and dynamic minds are indoctrinated and converted into left liberals by those at the operating seat. It has happened since decades because of the wrong ideals set by us.
Being a student of Delhi University, I have witnessed the different kind of politics played in the campuses. This one differs from the common politics because of its unique character of invisibility. The students are indoctrinated without their knowledge by the left scholars as they are the one who have strong hold over academia. Being the dominant one, they always show intolerance towards those having different mindset. Sanjeev Sanyal, an Indian economist, says, “Not only does Indian left enjoy state patronage, it has also a long history of being viciously intolerant towards contrary viewpoints.” He writes further, ” The left dominance over the intellectual establishment has its roots in the systematic ‘ethnic cleansing’ of all non left thinkers since the 1950s… The result of the systematic cleansing was that there was no non left academics remaining in the social sciences field in India by the early 1990s.”
These liberal scholars, sitting in universities, play a game of psychology in which they repeat same things to the students everyday about a person or ideology and instill in them the same thought process as theirs. For example, it is a common trend in such colleges to blame capitalism for the every wrong in the world and that socialism(not communism because they are unable to justify the atrocities committed in the name of communism) is panacea to every problem.
Doing so, they creat a common mindset of capitalism being the root cause of all problems among students. Students are made to do identity politics which is problematic in itself.
In such campuses, your level of intellectuality depends on how hard you abuse capitalism and sometimes even Hinduism with heavy English words. The students are lured to grab the tag of intellectuality which they get by paying some cost be it in the form of becoming sorry Hindus or criticising every policy of government (only if the government is of right wing party) or in the form of denunciation of everyone holding contrary viewpoints.
One more characteristic which these champagne socialists or left liberals hold is that they don’t find it polite to talk about Islamic invasions into India and the atrocities committed by them even in the contemporary world. As they have a hold over academics, they distorted history as much as they can. These people always try to depict the muslim invaders as either generous or art loving personality or too secular. The first prime minister of India, J L Nehru, in his book Discovery of India even went to the extent of describing Mahmood Ghazni, one who looted Somnath temple several times, as an art loving personality who praised the beautiful architecture of Mathura city. This incident is true but the same book, tarikh-i-yamini, from where Nehru cited the above incident, also says that Mahmood ordered his men to demolish and burn down the city of Mathura.
We all know what made him to deliberately cite one incident and leave another. The game of selective picking has become favourite of such left liberals due to which India has suffered a lot. JL Nehru in the same book of him wrote about Mahmood Ghazni that he came here only to loot wealth while a book rauzat-us-safa declares that it was an ardent desire of Mahmood to play a role of true Muslim monarch and convert non Muslims to his faith which means that he was not here only for wealth. The distortion of facts by the left scholars is not anything new to us. The ultimate goal of these historians is to not let the people know about the cruelty and inhumane tactics of Muslims in the past. These people should understand that there may be enough other way of healings but the one, through lies, will certainly not work for long. When people come to know about the facts and ill intentions of those who had hid these, it creates more hatred in them. Germans don’t hide the atrocities committed by Hitler rather they tell the stories to their citizens so that they can have a lesson for the future. Even Jews don’t let the world forget what had happened to them. The problem lies only with the scholars of India who, as Markand Panarjape (professor of JNU) says, are busy in painting a picture of inclusion which doesn’t exist.
There needs a change which can bring greater plurality in the establishment of academia. The hegemony of these left liberals over academic discourse is continuously causing harm to the nation as they don’t let the citizens know the real history of India. The another harm which they cause is to instil in the mind of students hatred towards one holding contrary view point at the first stage and the nation itself at the last stage. It is only the result of the hatred planted in them which make them to give slogans like ‘bharat tere tukde honge….‘
It is only because of instilled antipathy that the students chant, ‘Hindutva ki qabar khudegi…’at university gate. It is only the result of long flourished slow poison which causes them to ill treat anyone holding contrary viewpoint. If they went to the extent of creating obstacles to some eminent personalities like yog guru Ramdev, Vivek Agnihotri so that they could not enter the campus of university, it is only because of the instilled hatred among them. Yes, It is only because of hatred that they don’t let a Kashmiri hindu girl narrate story of their exodus from Kashmir in one of the campus of Delhi University.
There are several other unsaid stories of hatred and intolerance in such universities which don’t come to limelight because of the cherry picking attitude of lutyens media.
The right wing government, as it is in power, should focus more on the root of the problem rather than fruits which the tree has produced. Once we focus on the roots, the fruits will be automatically delicious. The urge is not to make the universities any epicenter of right wing movement but rather bring a change through which more intellectual plurality can be established which they lack today.
It is the responsibility of the state to provide liberty to the flourishing minds of the universities. It is the responsibility of the professors as well to put a balanced approach while teaching the students so that they can decide by their own which ideology they prefer and what personality they love. The world may be a better place if only we start taking our responsibilities seriously.
