The dominant tone of Indian culture is one of assimilation: Suranjan Das

In recent times, there have been many attempts to rewrite history. Take the Taj Mahal controversy, for example. Being a student and scholar of history, what do you feel about this?
It is a fact that history is constantly re-written. That makes the discipline a dynamic discipline. The discovery of new facts create opportunities for re-interpretation of history.Besides, the same event or process can be seen differently by different historians. Indian historiography has not been free of this trend. The colonial administrators and historians viewed India from a particular context; the nationalist historians rectified this understanding; in the 1970s Indian historiography underwent a major shift in the hands of Marxist historians. But reinterpretations of history should be based on empiricism, scientific methodology and without preconceived notions. Any other attempt is unfortunate.
You have done your DPhil on communal riots in Bengal. Do you feel that the present education system in India is being communalised?
If you look at modern Indian history, there has always been a tension between sectarian identity and national identity. But the predominant tone of Indian culture is one of synthesis and assimilation. Indian culture does not represent one single strand but is an assimilation of many strands. I feel this syncretic aspect of Indian culture will ultimately come to stay. Apart from stray incidents, the JU campus has been free of sectarian tension.
In recent times, we’ve seen seats in institutions like Presidency and JU going vacant. It’s worse in private engineering colleges. Do you think the importance of the state education system has gone down?
I would not link vacancies of seats in some premier institutions with the standard of higher education in Bengal. Otherwise, we cannot explain how the National Ranking Framework of the Government of India could rank Jadavpur University in the first position among state universities and the fifth position among all types of Indian universities or how the QS World Ranking ranked Calcutta University within the first 10 universities of the country. The seat vacancy that you mentioned occurred due to an administrative problem and I am sure that in the next year this will not happen. Besides, in JU some seats were vacant this year, particularly in the Technology faculty. We need not ignore the fact that seats in engineering courses are going vacant even in IITs. Does that mean the quality of IIT is going down? Certainly not. Nowadays students, especially in science and technology, look for courses which have a high employment demand. Seat vacancy in engineering is connected with economic issues and we need to appreciate that.
During his visit to India in November, Bill Gates said that India’s education system needs to be far better than it is today. Your comments.
I believe that Indian education system has done extremely well compared to the countries which won independence almost at the same time as we did. We need to understand that unlike in the UK or the US, higher education in India could not begin its career with a clean slate. Higher education was introduced in our country by colonial regime to suit colonial interests. One cannot forget Macaulay’s Minute which stated that Britain would strive to create a class of Indians brown in colour, but British in tastes and habits. Do you think 70 years is too long a period to undo the colonial legacy of 200 years and embark on a new course? Certainly not.
So, does that mean there are no problems?
Certainly there are challenges. The foremost among them is to strike a balance between quantitative and qualitative growth, and that too in consonance with equity and access. We need to expand higher education to increase our Gross Enrolment Ratio, but this expansion has to be in tune with excellence, equity and employability. Time has also come to link the output of teachinglearning process on campus with the broader social needs and aspirations. For instance, we have a responsibility to ensure that fruits of inventions reach the broader sections of society. Again, we in academics need to question ourselves on why — despite the academic excellence attained by socially relevant centres like the Women Studies Centres — gender sensitivity remains a far cry even in educated and apparently progressive social groups where property considerations mediate family relationships between males and females. Or, why the researches of Centres For Studies In Social Exclusion or Centre For Rehabilitation Studies have not been able to change the entrenched social perceptions of disadvantaged social groups? Again, universityindustry partnership is required to be taken to a level where inventions become innovations. Besides, India is a pluralist society and there cannot be a single model of higher education for the entire country. What works for JNU, will not work for JU. So, a number of models has be tried and tested to get the desired growth.
You left the post of VC in CU after a controversy and came to JU just after the Hok Kolorob movement. For an administrator, it was one of the most challenging times, when you had to strike a balance between the government and students. How did you do it?
The work of an academic administrator is very different from the functions of a government bureaucrat. An education institution has to foster innovation, creativity free thinking and free speech. And to ensure this a vice-chancellor has to constantly communicate with all the stakeholders of the University — students, guardians, faculty members, research scholars, officers and employees — as well as to work with the government, especially in a publicly funded university. I think till now I have been able to attain this. But the moment I realize I am failing to maintain this balance I would not hesitate to leave the chair.
Even after being a NAAC-affiliated, five-star university, JU is facing a funds crisis. What is the reason for that?
The situation of all state Universities is the same. This is because compared to central universities the state universities get a pittance from the federal government. When for a five-year plan period a leading central university is allocated ₹250-300 crore, state universities like JU, which has attained the tag of excellence, gets a paltry ₹25 crore. UGC provides a central university with both development and maintenance grants, while it gives a state university only development grant. It is a matter of deep regret that I cannot give a single farthing to my colleague as a startup grant, while their compatriots enjoy that privilege. I agree that the Rashtriya Uccha Siksha Abhijan (RUSA) is trying to address this dichotomy between state and central universities in terms of funding. But it will take a long time to rectify the imbalance.
Recently you have appealed to the alumni of JU to gather funds. Will you tell us about the initiative?
The Government of India has resolved to declare 10 public and 10 private universities as institutions of eminence. But to file an application under this scheme, a university is required to deposit ₹1 crore, of which ₹75 lakh will be refunded if the application is unsuccessful. So I appealed to our distinguished alumni for financial support and I am grateful to the alumni for raising ₹25 lakh, which is actually what we will lose if our application is unsuccessful. If we are successful in our bid, we get ₹1,000 crore for a five-year period. I do look forward to developing a symbiotic relationship between the university and the alumni which has enabled Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or MIT to sustain its constant quest for excellence.