A ringside view of the knowledge circus
Do India’s universities and centres of higher learning know what they are talking about when they use the term “sustainable development”? I have long assumed they do not. Simply because the organisation which created and popularised the term, the United Nations (and its various agencies), has not in any meaningful way examined the terms “development” and “sustainable”.
It has been over 50 years since they came to be introduced into major languages, but this has not been done either by the UN and its agencies, or by the great host of allied organisations which altogether make up the multilateral circuit.
I state this not as an armchair pundit, but because of many years of field experience that have, at many times, had to do with either “development” or “sustainable” or “sustainable development”. This field experience has been in the areas of rural development, environment and ecology, health and sanitation, cultural heritage and handicrafts, agriculture and food, water.
What I have seen, from the time I was a young adult in India, has been undevelopment, maldevelopment and unsustainable in every way possible. And, since 2012 as part of my engagement with Unesco’s culture section, the same in every single country in Asia that I visited. For the most part, what the very large majority of populations in Asia (and I presume in the African and South American continents) and also in Europe and North America live inside, are variations of undevelopment and unsustainable.
Yet here we are, six years short of 2030, which has been written in as the terminal year for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and its Agenda 2030 programme. India’s universities have – so far as I can see – adopted the cosmetics and optics of this programme with gusto. What it means to university faculty I cannot imagine. Perhaps a chance to be sent off to some absurdly titled conference somewhere in Asia or, even better, USA or Europe. Perhaps a chance to submit a case study on the SDGs to one of the UN’s hundreds of “high level panel” on something or the other related to the SDGs.
What I now relate is a close encounter with how one of India’s learning centres has adopted the “sustainable development” gospel. I have enough reason to believe that what I relate here does not describe an infrequent instance. It was some ten years ago that I first learnt of “mock UN” programmes being held in colleges and universities (schools even) all over India. The adoption has become widespread.
In early February I had a message from a New Delhi-based foundation about an upcoming conference on ‘IKS and SDGs’. This acronym, IKS, stands for Indian Knowledge Systems, and we have been seeing a good bit of activity on this subject during the last three or four years about it. But this is the first time I was hearing of a meeting to discuss Indian knowledge systems and the UN sustainable development goals.
Here is their description for “an international conference on Indian Knowledge Systems for achieving Sustainable Development Goals”.
The first paragraph: “Indian Knowledge Systems have a strong foundation in Indian culture, philosophy, and spirituality and have evolved through thousands of years. Sustainability on the other hand is emerging as a key theme for research in almost all fields of research in contemporary era. The United Nations has defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the present International Conference focuses on tracks across all these fields related to Indian Knowledge Systems. This Conference will provide platform to the researchers, academicians and institutions where they can present and discuss varied opinions and research works in the domain of Indian Knowledge Systems for achieving Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance in modern times.”
Overlooking the repetitive elements, what this immediately presents is the UN ownership of the SDGs, goes on to say that it will focus on work on the SDGs as they relate to Indian knowledge systems (IKS), and therefore how IKS can be of service to the SDGs.
The second paragraph: “This International Conference will deliberate the linkages between Indian Knowledge Systems and 17 Sustainable Development Goals that aims to identify and prove importance of those Indian knowledge practices which are indispensable for entire humanity and environment in modern times as well as provide a road map for future deliberations and research.”
It isn’t at all clear what this means. Links between IKS and SDGs, importance of IKS, how IKS can be used in future, is what I interpret it to be.
The third paragraph: “This International Conference aims to offer an opportunity to exchange new advancements in the area of listed themes and subthemes for further speedy progress in sustainability and opens new doors for networking and initiating the bilateral and multilateral interdisciplinary research in areas of mutual interests for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).”
More repetitive unclarity.
Nonetheless I wrote to the conference organisers: “I learnt about the conference you have organised, on Indian Knowledge Systems and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, only now. I won’t at this late juncture be able to offer a paper on the subject, however I would like to keep in touch with you and the Centre for Spiritualism and Human Enrichment should you continue to pursue the subject.”
“My reason for asking so is the experience I have, for the last 13 years with Unesco Asia-Pacific as one of its experts on living heritage (which has much to do with knowledge systems). And prior to that in the same overall theme of knowledge systems, as adviser to the Centre for Environment Education Himalaya, and the National Agriculture Innovation Project (under the Ministry of Agriculture).”
I expected that, if at all I am replied to, the organising institution would ask me to explain how my experience contributed to its conference theme. A reply did come back the same day: “Thank you so much for showing your interest. You may send your Abstract and Key words in 300 words on any dimension of Indian Knowledge System of your choice.”
Perhaps the organisers were over-burdened with administrative and teaching work and could not spare the time to ask the question I thought they should. I went ahead with an abstract that telegraphed as clearly as I could the intent of my proposed paper.
This was my abstract:
“The formalisation of the idea of sustainable development has, in many ways, preceded by several decades any attempt at formalising ideas about traditional knowledge. Yet, while ‘development’ ceased to be examined only in a narrow economic sense, to then become subordinate first to human development and then to sustainable development, traditional knowledge experienced no such perceptual transformation over the same period. I posit, in this paper, that this is so because systems of traditional knowledge – which includes Indian knowledge systems – exist as living heritage practices brought into our era from earlier eras (some ancient). In contrast, ‘sustainable development’ and its allied concepts have no such pedigree.”
“As 2030 draws nearer, this having been fixed by the United Nations as the terminal year for all manner of efforts that relate to activities which today are deemed to fulfil criteria for both ‘sustainable’ and ‘development’, we see traditional knowledge systems being drafted into this specific service. The central question however – of whether there is the implicit connection assumed between traditional knowledge and sustainable development – has remained unasked as the pace quickens towards 2030. I explain that rather than an investment (of practical and intellectual effort) in safeguarding traditional knowledge systems, the eagerness to draft them into the service of the Sustainable Development Goals is misplaced and potentially damaging to the continued viability of knowledge systems overall, including Indian knowledge systems.”
I thought that this would test them. I have more than ample field evidence to support my assertions. It would be a measure of their academic openness, I reasoned, if they accepted an abstract like this one as an indicator of the paper to follow, because what I was signalling to them was the insubstantial basis for their conference itself.
On 19 February an email arrived to tell me my abstract had been accepted, that I should upload it somewhere on the conference website, doing which would give me a ‘conference identity number’ that I would have to use when uploading my full paper. Encouraging, but I had expected at least a query or two.
On 26 February I completed my full paper, uploaded the file to the conference website and informed the organisers. Soon after, I received an email thanking me for uploading the paper and asking me to complete the registration process – that is, registration to attend the conference. On 27 February, I wrote back: “Thank you for accepting my paper. Concerning registration and the registration fee, I was not going to be able to attend the conference as for personal reasons I am unable to travel. I can transfer to you a token registration fee. But – please note – only a token. Do let me know what is suitable.”
By that time, the conference organisers were listing the titles of the papers received. I found them not a little bizarre: ‘Political awareness and political participation: an Indian retortion to colonial mindset and western perspective’, ‘Enhancing employee productivity: lessons of Swami Vivekananda for corporates’, ‘Healthcare economics in the Indian context: a comprehensive exploration of historical development and future trajectory’, ‘Immutable gender differences, ethical aspects at priority: assessing next generation impacts’, ‘Decoding the dharma of leadership: unveiling the management principles embedded in Indian mythology’, ‘Reviving shakti: unraveling the synergy of Indian knowledge systems in fostering gender equality and women’s empowerment’.
To my email, there was no reply nor has there been one since. The conference was held on the 2nd and 3rd of March. With a lead time of less than a month, I would not have been able to attend it. My intention was to make an attempt to help one of India’s IKS centres understand that there are several views about what they call IKS and what the UN calls SDGs that are quite different from what they are accustomed to, and that I had the necessary experience to explain it all.
But there is silence from the organisers. Considering all that I have seen take place – from my limited vantage point outside the margins of academics and administration – in the area of Indian Knowledge Systems, there is both a prescribed narrative about them and an orthodoxy to how they are dealt with. Just like there are for the SDGs. Isn’t that curious?
Shaktichakra, the wheel of energies 
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