Society falls if it doesn’t allow critical thinking: Former JNU faculty

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IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, Feb 22: “People do intellectual debates at Ganga Dhaba of JNU – I do not know if Jamia Millia also had a Ganga Dhaba and if not, there should be one – or at coffee house or at homes, these debates appear to be one-to-one argument but at deeper level they develop critical thinking in the society. If a society does not have critical thinking and interrogation that society falls,” said eminent writer and former professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University Prof. Purshottam Agarwal.

He was speaking at the Guftgu event of Jamia Collective here on Saturday (20th Feb).

JNU is in the news for the last two weeks following a controversial event at the campus (9th Feb) where some anti-national slogans were allegedly raised by students. JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar has been arrested under sedition charges for allegedly raising those slogans – Kumar himself has denied the allegation. Half a dozen other students are also accused in the case.

While condemning “justification of brute force, decay of democratic institutions and end of accountability,” Prof. Agarwal said: “You can beat an accused inside the premises of court, assault his supporters and no one is questioning you. But on the other hand, some professors of JNU were harassed just because they had booked the press club hall for a program.” He was referring to the 15th Feb incident at Patiala House court where some students, teachers and also journalists were assaulted by some lawyers.

“You need not to be highly educated for respecting a person who is highly educated and professor. Renowned Hindi critic Acharya Ramchandra Shukla had once said that if a society respects head of a police station more than a pundit (intellectual), that society cannot claim to be civilized. He had said this much before independence. I think, at that time, pundits got more respect but today, all respect is reserved for head of a police station or attacker or the TV journalist who can cry loudly.”

“The demonization of intellectuals, decay of institutions and marginalization of rationality are classical signs of fascism. The way people are being profiled, the way a young student is repeatedly projected as anti-national on TV channels – those who study TV channels and their social impact know how subliminal message is sent out.”

“We are living in a very dangerous and depressing time. Therefore, while fighting against those forces, we will have to fight against our own ideology, faith and thinking, and would remind ourselves that those who criticize our faith, ideology and thinking are not criminal. They have right to raise questions.”

In support of the culture of debate and critical thinking, he gave a personal example.

“I am a 100% vegetarian but my son and daughter are heavily non-vegetarian. And they tease me for being vegetarian. It’s ok. About Vivekananda, my son has same viewpoint that Rohith Vemula had. Then what? Should I evict him or myself out of the home? They debate and discuss with me,” said Prof. Agarwal.

He stressed that people should make efforts for creation of democratic space in the society.

“The question is promotion of democratic viewpoint of nationalism. And that is why you can’t capture or adopt their nationalism. Their nationalism is such that even if you want to adopt it you can’t. We should understand that nation or nationalism is new phenomenon in India – it came after 1648. Before that, there were empires and civilizations and there was no nation or nation state. So our efforts should be to create democratic space in society and the state.”

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