SIKKIM UNIVERSITY HOSTS SPRING LECTURE AND BOOK DISCUSSION SESSION

MJ Akbar introduces youth to the challenge of their generation – the eradication of poverty

SAGAR CHHETRI
GANGTOK, 30 May: Senior journalist, MJ Akbar, speaking directly to a young audience of university students, stressed that the challenge for the present generation was to eliminate poverty and establish economic equality in the country. This, he stressed, will “complete the idea of Modern India”.
Editorial Director of India Today, Mr. Akbar, was delivering the Sikkim University’s second Spring Lecture at Chintan Bhawan today, speaking on the topic, “The Idea of a Modern India”. The session was chaired by the ex-Member of Parliament and Planning Commission, Som Pal. 

Mr Akbar argued that the country, as it was imagined at the time of Independence, was one which would guarantee democracy and secular governance to its citizens. Secularism, he added, when applied to India was not the same as the separation of the Church from the State of the West, but a secularism which made space for pluralism, a space which guaranteed co-existence of all faiths. The countrt, he said, has guaranteed this and with the Hindu Code Bill, initiated the process of gender equality.
He shared how Pandit Nehru saw the passage of Hindu Code Bill as his most significant achievement.
“India has done tremendously well to ensure democracy, secularism and gender equality but the country is still lagging behind in ensuring economic equality,” Mr Akbar said.
On the same, he stressed that now the country needs to work towards eradicating poverty and presented it as the challenge which the generation in the making will have to deliver.
Interestingly, Mr Akbar juxtaposed the “idea of a modern India” against arguments on which Pakistan was created. He argued that Pakistan was essentially an elitist obsession and remains a country where even the feeling of nationalism has not evolved beyond the parochialism of its past.
He argued that the philosophy which presented Pakistan as a “fortress of Islam” was the reason why the State was failing and why there continues to be a disconnect there between its people and the government.
He also appreciated the oral history programme of the Sikkim University and welcomed it a good approach towards informing the coming generations about their “histories”.
History in India, at least what was being taught in schools, was a colonial misrepresentation of Indian realities, he stressed, stating that divisions projected in ‘history’ textbooks were worked in to feed the colonial agenda for the region.
Speaking from the chair, Mr Pal endorsed the comments made by Ms Akbar and also suggested that Sikkim University include some programmes on important historical events to help the students understand those episodes and personalities better.
Earlier, Prof Lama mentioned that the main objective of the Spring Lecture programme was to provide students and people of the state with the opportunity to listen experts and eminent figures explain issues and developments shaping the country and the world.
He said that a clear objective was also to encourage inter-disciplinary engagements at the university and to make the students more confident from the exposure and equip them with a deeper knowledge and understanding of things.
The Spring Lecture was followed by a book discussion programme chaired by the former president, Centre for Policy Research, Prof Charan D Wadhwa.
The books taken up for discussion were: “First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India” by BG Verghese, “The Life and Times of a Plantsman in the Sikkim Himalayas” by KC Pradhan and “Himalayan Fermented Foods: Microbiology, Nutrition and Ethnic Values” by JP Tamang.
The discussants were independent journalist and education, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Mr Pal, Prof Uma Singh from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr Budhiman Tamang from Sikkim University, Dr SK Jain from Delhi University, editor Sikkim Express, Amit Patro, senior editor and columnist, Shastri Ramachandran, and editor Sikkim NOW!, Pema Wangchuk Dorjee.
The session, even as it was long, featured some intense and invigorating discussions on the books under consideration and made for a day packed with academic engagement which should have been rewarding for both, the students and the faculty in attendance.