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!
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Posted on August 13, 2010 at 8:04 pm in Commentary | RSS feed
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भारतेन्दु 
Hindu Amnesia
by Sarvesh K TiwariIt 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!
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Posted on August 13, 2010 at 8:04 pm in Commentary | RSS feed | Reply | Trackback URL
3 Comments to “Hindu Amnesia”
October 7, 2010 at 2:17 pm
The Indian proletariat and even the relatively well to do for that matter are too engrossed with basic needs like hunger and shelter. The finer things in life like culture, history and intellect is French to them unless it gives them more income to make ends meet. A person’s professional fate is decided even before he is born based on the monetary returns of the job chosen for him by his parents. It is either an engineer or a doctor even to this date. Personal gratification and inner satisfaction have no takers in this society which is fighting for survival and existence. The parents see hope of a better future and recognition in the child and train him towards a mechanical life where the shift timings of the child increase with increasing age till a time comes when he is fit enough to be a ‘Resource’ for a money making Chaebol.
Much can be improved by population control. It is only then that people will have a stomach full of food, time on their hands to think about life and money to enjoy the finer things of life. Everything would be manageable and the chaos seen around us would be ancient history itself. A person going for studies would have the luxury to choose his course and domain as making money enough to feed himself and his family would not be the only criterion for his choice.
Increasing salaries in educational institutions for teachers is not the only way to go about attracting better talent to study the arts and humanities but providing them with better career options other than teaching would be a solution and a challenge. This would need creating greater institutional setup to nurture and promote these niche areas.
Thus, the problem has many roots and the resulting offshoots are visible for everyone to see. The solution would also need a holistic approach and only then can we see a revival of the ancient and the magnificent in our society.
January 5, 2011 at 2:14 pm
How does one go about re-capturing the lost intellectual vigour. What would you recommend as a curriculum for a generation which is just discovering what they had missed, or the next generation. Any pointers/guide/books/essential reads will be greatly appreciated.
January 6, 2011 at 4:39 am
Praveen thanks for commenting.
I always suggest every friend who asks me this, to start here http://voiceofdharma.com/books.html
These are available online for free. Digest them. Begin with Sita Ram Goel, K S Lal, then Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, and N S Rajara
Then learn Sanskrit, Hindi, and start reading the source texts yourself. Ignore the secular writings altogether to begin with. Come back to them later.