Tropical universities and knowledge production

In 1857, three universities were established in the presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. In no small way this was the result of a 1854 dispatch sent by Charles Wood, a top dog of the Company, to James Broun-Ramsay, then governor general of Company territories in the subcontinent.

I graduated from one of these aforementioned universities and was present at multiple celebrations of 150 years of their existence. In 1861, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was established. I was also present at its 150-year celebration events. Much of what I heard in the sub-continental anniversary celebrations was about  ‘glorious heritage’, famous personalities associated with the institutions and self-congratulation. At MIT, I heard about plans about the future — new avenues of research and newer challenges. There wasn’t much mention of personalities in the institution that has produced 78 Nobel laureates.

In the subcontinent, MIT represents excellence in engineering and technology.

While that is true, according to the 2013 QS Rankings published last week, in the whole world, MIT is second only to Harvard in Biological Sciences and Economics. MIT has not simply stuck to its one-time strengths but has actively diversified its ‘priorities’. In doing so, it has shut down departments whose shelf life was perceived to be over. These are signs of a living institution in conversation with the cutting edge of knowledge production — not alienated from needs and agendas of its host society.

In the QS rankings, MIT tops the list; Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, Yale, Oxford and Princeton are also among the top 10. It may be news to some that not one of the top 10 universities of the world has a department of botany at present.

They mostly ceased to exist decades ago. Only museums remain bearing the erstwhile department’s name. Contrast this to the large departments of botany in most universities of the subcontinent. Clearly there is something we get that ‘they’ don’t. Given that the Occidental university system and department making is something that ‘they’ taught us, could it be that they get something that we don’t?

Lets continue with the example of botany, though it’s not exceptional. When white powers set up universities in colonies, why did they set up departments of botany? What knowledge did they seek to produce? For whose benefit? What made them wind up certain departments? To cut whose loss? All knowledge production and prioritization exists in a societal context. The coloniser’s societal context fashioned their decisions, at home and in the colonies. Given that we are not only inheritors of such university systems but also active perpetrators, do we have an appreciation of our own reasons to do so? Why are there so few institutions like the Indian Statistical Institute, whose agenda was conceived in conversation with the society it derives funding from and blooms in and also is a centre of excellence?

Let me broaden the ambit. Why do certain things, like homeopathy and psychoanalysis, have long after-lives in the once-colonized tropics compared to places from where they were imported? When the site of knowledge production is distant and they cater primarily to needs of alien societies, received knowledge and ideas create a sense of awe. This results in a lack of confidence to manipulate, to break, to discard. In so far as universities are fountainheads of societal knowledge yearnings, what do our societies want to know? Have we asked? We better start doing that. Otherwise we risk becoming expert cleaners and preservers of other people’s furniture, lacking the confidence of changing the arrangement. But our own people pay the cleaner’s wage.

The author is a brain scientist at MIT