FB Discussions - On IIT and beyond.

Too many posts on 'IIT engineer goes to help villages'. Does it not smack of 'White man goes to save heathens'. I also thought IIT was the ultimate in my teens, and that IIT graduates were creme de la creme. But I grew up.

Essential wisdom is in villages. If we move to villages, it is because the villages are kind enough to allow us space. And learning from them, and with them, we may engage in our efforts. And that is all. Solving Fast Fourier Transforms fast is no use.

 
Villages need a different kind of wisdom as in Kumarappa's Economy of Permanence. 

The IIT training can only help corporates and more exploiting of nature and man. I used to once worry about Brain Drain. Now I realise that these learnings are useless - and they are best exported ! Those from IIT who have actually moved to help in villages are those who put aside their IIT learnings. 

The essential wisdom of the thatcher and the potter and the farmer does not belong to university textbooks and classes. Basic wisdom, sustainable ways of being, and structures of learning have to be revisited in essence.

Bharani Shivakumar They cannot be syllabus, but it has to be part of the curriculum making it mandatory to undergo training on indigenous technologies by reaching out to villages, the same way they do in plant training or industrial visits to large industries. It is a much needed doze to sublime the ego of the urban education.

Aparna Krishnan   Post schooling 3 years in villages is what gave  perspectives and learnings. 

Sanjay Maharishi I had once gone to pusa agriculture institute. It looks like a 5 star hotel. It has about a hundred acres of land, infinite water supply, money and resources but it does not grow enough food to support even the few on its campus, let alone its neighborhood. I asked a student what's going on in all those fields. He replied with a high-brow importance 'Research'.

Aparna Krishnan The Educated are parasites on this land. And they have this terrific sense on entitlement. Power has to be with the common people - not the educated, mainstream or activist. That day India will come into her own.


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Aparna Krishnan This aura around the IIT or IISc or NIT has to go. The wisdom of villages has to be understood as primary. For this country to progress.  The Educated need to stop thinking they are the Saviours.

Aparna Krishnan We are not. The real and meaninful knowlege and wisdom resides with the people. That knowlege which is sustainable. We can help in tertiary ways in protecting these thats all.