HYDERABAD: Rajiv Malhotra, author, researcher and founder of Infinity Foundation, USA is on a three-day long visit to Hyderabad. As part of his visit, he interacted with mediapersons on issues such as “western influences on Indian academia”, “divisive narratives from within and outside the country” and “threat to Indian value system”. The interaction was organised by Pragna Bharati, Telangana, an independent forum of intellectuals that holds talks and seminars by prominent leaders.
Among other guests presiding over the event, were K. Aravinda Rao, former DGP, Andhra Pradesh (united cadre) who is also a writer and a translator; and Vijaya Viswanathan, President, Infinity Foundation and co-author of “Varna, Jati, Caste”.
Introducing Malhotra to media persons, Aravinda Rao said, “Rajiv Malhotra is admired across the country. His fresh insights impinge on how polity functions. He has opened our eyes to the developments taking place outside the country. Despite our own differences, we, as a nation, want to remain together. However, some dialogues that have developed overseas, have begun to dominate our narrative within the country. Rajiv Malhotra’s knowledge has enabled thinkers, political analysts, to understand the ramifications of some of these ideas. The question before us is, how do we tackle this “nuisance” and to ensure that the country’s “unity” is not broken.”
Interacting with media persons, Malhotra talked about the “ignorance of the Indian masses and how to bring them back on track”. “In spite of 30 years of work, there are a few, nowadays, who are interested in doing hard work. There is a degradation of quality of mind, the level of thinking among the masses has gone down. In a democracy, however, you have to cater to such people in order to get elected. Politicians have to become emotional, which leads to appeasement politics,” Malhotra said.
“We have a third generation of educated people who cannot think for themselves. They may have foreign degrees from reputed universities but they are not able to answer my questions. They are not able to think clearly. I am thinking of bigger things such as lack of proper education, lack of a valid value system. Our problem is that once the politicians get elected, they invite foreign advisors to guide us on our education system, data rights, etc,” he said.
“Now the government is going to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India with no restrictions. Indian universities have restrictions but foreign ones do not. We are proudly becoming ‘vishwa-chelas’ instead of ‘vishwa-guru’,” he added.
Emphasising on the content taught in foreign universities, Dr Vijaya Viswanathan added that there are courses being taught in foreign universities. “The government doesn’t do due diligence to see who they are bringing to India, who they are working for. They are just doing a consulting assignment to make money for their parent company, they have no interest in India,” she said.
Adding, she said that countries like Russia and Singapore value their civilisational ethos. They value their education system. “For example, after ten years of collaboration Singapore university separated ways from Yale university saying that their liberal arts have made our society very divisive,” she said. Dr Rajiv Malhotra will be visiting Hyderabad Central University (HCU) on Tuesday to interact with students.