{"id":102312,"date":"2021-04-19T20:28:16","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=102312"},"modified":"2021-05-08T13:31:33","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:01:33","slug":"university-cannot-give-up-its-role-as-a-site-of-dissent-and-questioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/university-cannot-give-up-its-role-as-a-site-of-dissent-and-questioning\/","title":{"rendered":"University cannot give up its role as a site of dissent and questioning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Synopsis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The exit of Pratap Bhanu Mehta from Ashoka University has challenged popular assumptions about the space for unregulated intellectual freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Introduction\u00a0<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Concerns about the future of the academy and the ecosystems that define its routes have risen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 967 universities and 128 institutions include state, central, deemed and 370 private universities and accommodate around 3.74 crore students.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Universities are not just hubs of teaching and learning. They expect a new reality, imagine alternatives, establish the positions of civilised engagement in democratic citizenship and represent transformative impulse.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The university today is an unsolidified daily poll. It has to navigate through academic freedom and organisational accountability, between its connections with the state and centres of power; between equality.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Why is dissent important?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The NEP persistently highlights outreach programmes, started by the social responsibility of the university. The NAAC and NIRF rankings pay significant attention to this dimension.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Firstly, the public thinker\u2019s accepted trained stature enables them to seek explanation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s for public action from those in power. They intervene in the interests of public good based on condensed study.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Secondly, these involvements are always in the interests of justice and democracy <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and define the options that are available for a better ordering of society.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Thirdly, the public intellectual is expected to be an impartial critic<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and show that a politics that rises above resentment is possible. Due to many reasons, universities have abandoned their role as sites of the dissenting tradition.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Fourthly,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> History is filled with examples of the possibilities of <\/span><b>dissenting interrogations opening new lands of thought.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Fifthly, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Teaching to break the rules becomes integral to pedagogy as classrooms evolve from safe to brave spaces. Analysis of the structures of dominance, power, prejudice, and silences in knowledge production becomes important.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>How has dissent enriched academics over the years?<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The contributions of an Aryabhata, Buddha, Khwarizmi, Copernicus, Galileo, Al-Zahrawi, Descartes, Newton, Marx, or an Einstein were built on paradigm shifts that disturbed settled comfort zones.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The often prayed\u00a0Nalanda\u00a0tradition too excelled in pushing the \u201csutras\u201d to arouse new voices through reasoned dialogue and debate.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The newest NEP even pushes HEIs to integrate critical thinking into course and discourse.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>The conclusion\u00a0<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Education is to protect citizens against the rigid closure of their own beliefs and shake them to put their own truths to constant scrutiny.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The issue is unceasing, unstoppable, interminable satyagraha against simplification, uniformity, and totalisation\u201d that the academy will truly reflect atmanirbharta.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/pratap-bhanu-mehta-resignation-dissent-autonomy-in-a-university-nep-7279350\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">click here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The exit of Pratap Bhanu Mehta from Ashoka University has challenged popular assumptions about the space for unregulated intellectual freedom. Introduction\u00a0 Concerns about the future of the academy and the ecosystems that define its routes have risen.\u00a0 The 967 universities and 128 institutions include state, central, deemed and 370 private universities and accommodate around&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/university-cannot-give-up-its-role-as-a-site-of-dissent-and-questioning\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">University cannot give up its role as a site of dissent and questioning<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,8043,1351,1310],"tags":[1309],"class_list":["post-102312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-current-affairs-cat","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","tag-education_related","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704756341},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}