IKS is a ‘free-for-all fest for people holding naive, pseudoscientific ideas’: Scientists’ network

NEW DELHI: All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN) has issued a statement on the alleged ‘misuse’ of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) mandate across higher education institutions. The statement comes after reports on changes in the NCERT textbooks and pseudoscientific content in the curriculum offered at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).

The statement said that “the introduction of IKS in curricula has mostly been marred by shoddy and biased implementation”. The statement cites a range of examples including the National Council of Educational Training and Research’s (NCERT) social science books “giving privilege” to Sanskrit-based traditions over others, to the “highly mangled version” of IKS taught in the IITs. It describes the introduction of IKS courses as a “free-for-all fest” without proper faculty. The statement called out all academics and said they are doing a disservice to education and IKS by including “pseudoscientific claims in their IKS courses”.

Here’s the complete text of All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN) statement IKS

One of the key recommendations of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was introduction of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) in curricula at all levels. It was suggested that IKS information may be integrated within existing topics for school subjects and specialised IKS courses may be introduced at UG/PG level.

We know that the tree of knowledge for any modern discipline has roots emanating from multiple ancient cultures, including India.

It is critical to challenge the racist belief that the West is the only source of scientific thought and acknowledge science's broad cultural past. Making students aware of these contributions would indeed be welcome.

Although the final notification of NEP didn’t spell out details of what would be included under IKS, the draft NEP document had made clear mentions of traditions from Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian texts among others, acknowledging the plurality of traditions, even in the Indian context.

It is important to also eliminate the misconception that science was a pursuit of just a few learned men or a specific social group. While acknowledging the role of theorists and realms such as mathematics and astronomy, one must also recognize the importance of craftspeople and knowledge domains such as weaving, fishing, agriculture, sailing, and so on.

The 'Indian' knowledge system is not singular. Because India is huge and has numerous biogeographic areas, people living in different zones have evolved technologies and concepts that are best suited to their environment based on their experience. Many of these funds of knowledge are still evolving as the craftspeople come up with newer techniques to keep up with the changing times and climates. The diversity of these 'living knowledge systems’ should not be overlooked in order to privilege dominant ancient traditions.These are very much part of IKS. Nevertheless, the proposed IKS suggestions have a narrow emphasis, which is restrictive and disappointing.

However, in the last couple of years, the introduction of IKS in curricula has mostly been marred by shoddy and biased implementation. The NCERT introduced revised books for Class 6 this year. The new social science book, for the most part, seems to privilege Sanskrit-based traditions over others. In the guise of countering the racist Western origin of scientific outlook, NEP proponents tend to take a reverse racist position, claiming that 'everything was known in ancient India'. Ayurveda experts and scholars have rightfully criticised the chapter on ayurveda in a NCERT Class 11 textbook for exaggerations xenophobic nationalism, rather than viewing science as a shared human heritage.

Thankfully, the Class 6 science book has been truer to our pluralistic past.

The situation at UG/PG level is far worse. Regulating bodies like UGC have released a few guiding documents regarding the introduction of IKS in the curricula. But the goals set in these documents are impossibly impractical. As an example, one of these documents lists a detailed syllabus for a possible IKS course on history of Indian Mathematics and Astronomy.

But, most of our faculty members in higher educational institutions (HEI) have no prior experience or training to teach that course and are unfamiliar with the materials covered therein. This pedagogical expertise among teachers around the country cannot be built by merely making them attend a few ill-planned training programmes.

Thus, in many well-meaning HEIs, highly mangled versions of such courses are getting introduced. Such poorly thought courses do a disservice to some of the profound contributions of Indian mathematics, by their dishonest and cartoonish representation.

Beyond that, there is even a darker underbelly.

In several HEIs, introducing IKS has become a free-for-all fest for people holding naive and/or pseudoscientific ideas about the history of Indian science and mathematics. Video clips of various ridiculous claims made by the IIT Mandi director are viral on social media. But he is just the visible symptom of a larger malaise.

Pseudo-IKS courses are being designed to push all sorts of unscientific and unsupported claims including “ reincarnation, out-of-body experience ” (IIT Mandi), “Bhootvidya” (BHU), “astrology” (BHU), or claims that Indian civilisation dates backs beyond the last ice age (IITKGP). Strangely, the designers of all these courses also seem to be unaware of pluralistic knowledge traditions in India. They air their own parochial understanding of “what IKS is” which seems to start and end with what they can find from dubious internet sites that make exaggerated claims resting on their half-baked Sanskrit-based knowledge traditions. Shockingly, some of the literature cited in support of claims of Ayurvedic cures are from researchers whose papers have later been retracted.

Many of these sub-standard, pseudoscientific courses are being forced down the students’ throat by making them mandatory. Perhaps the designers of such courses are aware of the ridiculous nature of their claims and are afraid of facing rejection from students, if these courses are made elective.

We, the undersigned scientists, science teachers, educators, science popularisers and social activists express strong concern about all such pseudoscientific claims being introduced in the guise of IKS. What is happening is decidedly against scientific temper as envisaged in the Constitution of India and brings out the problems outlined in the Kolkata well-researched scientific sources for their IKS courses and weed out all pseudoscientific claims. They should stay true to the diversity that is inherent in the IKS as mentioned earlier. We also call out all academics, who are doing a disservice to education in general, but IKS in particular, by inclusion of pseudoscientific claims in their IKS courses and we implore other faculty members in HEIs running such questionable IKS courses to stand up for the truth and stop such courses using the mechanisms within the institutions.

Partial List of Signatories

1. Prof. Aniket Sule, Mumbai

2. Prof. Deepak Mathur, Mumbai

3. Prof. S. Krishnaswamy, Madurai

4. Prof. Soumitro Banerjee, Kolkata

5. Prof. Ajit M. Srivastava, Bhubaneswar

6. Dr. Ravinder Banyal, Bengaluru

7. Prof. Medha Rajadhyaksha, Mumbai

8. Prof. Rahul Nigam, Hyderabad

9. Prof. Shanta Laishram, Delhi

10. Prof. Mahesh Shetti, Mumbai

11. Prof. Sudhir Panse, Mumbai

12. Dr. Debanjan Polley, Hyderabad

13. Dr. Soma Marla, Hyderabad

14. Prof. Sudesh Ghoderao, Nashik

15. Prof. T. V. Venkateswaran, Mohali