भारतेन्दु

It seems Hindus are suffering from a settled and severe case of Amnesia, and thanks to the condition, not able to experience the natural pangs that they must have experienced from the tormenting memories of past, had they been healthy; but to Hindus these memories seem to be inaccessible! They are displaying artificial comfort in the way things are, not even knowing that the same forces that have kept wounding them for centuries continue to do so to this day! Only a civilization that suffers serious intellectual damage and derangement of its memory management can be so casual about the pursuit of its exploration in history.

We examined the case through a crude statistical model. We collected the admission data from the Delhi University graduate courses in the latest curriculum year for 8 different courses, mostly related with humanities and excluded in it the more popular technology and science fields. We then arranged the cut off mark required for a candidate to get admitted to these different graduate courses in 30 best known colleges that offered these courses.

After plotting the admission cut off data against the subject and college, the result that came out confirmed our assertion:

The only two subjects that are clear winners and can compete truly with the disciplines of science and technology for being in demand by the brightest are, predictably, Commerce & Economics. All across the colleges, there is no other course that even touched these two.

The next cluster of choice comprises of English and Political Science, in that order, and is the clear second group which no other subject touches almost in any college, with only one or two outliers.

It is in the last cluster group that Hindi, History and Philosophy find any takers; History being the last option after all other choices are exhausted, and the line representing Philosophy appears like a pitiable scratch mark upon the graph!

But the worst was in store for the devabhAShA, bringing which on plot required truly stretching the scale to bottom!

It seems saMskR^ita is studied only by those students who can hope to get admission to nothing else, and are compelled to study the language of the deva-s! Even Urdu, Arabic and Persian, in colleges where they are offered, fared better than the language in which all the collective Hindu experience is recorded!!! The dead language indeed!

Such is the state of Hindu intellectual affairs and tilted such is our civilizational preferences of pursuits of directions. What wonder then that while Hindus may be looking to become economically very powerful, their intellectual returns shall continue to become poorer and inferior in more significant civilizational ventures and in attainment of soft power!