The Left ideology has, for far too long dominated Indian and global academia, it is time to change and challenge that
The academia, as a field is all for reasons, a battle of ideas. A university or a college or that matter is a battleground of all forces, good or bad.
Academia is the theoretical base on which human capital of any society is shaped. The human mind is in its embryonic stage until high school.
It is only in academia, that the human mind flourishes. Dostoevsky in The Crime & Punishment had delved into it a bit, so did Aristotle and other great philosophers.
In the Indian context, academia is no different.
However, globally and that too for many years, academia has been dominated by left wing ideologies of socialism and communism.
This is especially true for India. Elite universities like JNU, University of Hyderabad, Jadavpur University, Delhi University etc have been the bastions of left ideology.
But there are several problems with leftism in academia.
Utopian Thought
Communism or Marxism, at best is a utopian ideology. It isn’t rooted to the basic realities of a society.
It takes such an idealistic view of society that it loses legitimacy.
This explains the fact that it has since 1991 lost any relevance at the global level. But the reason is that it still continues to maintain its appeal is because of presenting an almost hypnotic romanticized view of the world, disconnected with social realities.
It is at best, utopian.
Deracinated Base
Left ideology ends up deracinating people from their indigenous roots and makes them slaves of an imperialist era ideology.
Yes, I dare say, imperialist because communism which is the ‘invention’ of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels was an out and out Eurocentric ideology which favored colonialism, at least for Bharat.
It alienates individuals from their roots and undermines the hold of traditional institutions in any society.
This is evident from the onslaught against traditional Chinese symbols and ideas during the reign of Mao Zedong.
It is also highly militant in nature, it considers revolution and that too bloody one to ‘smash’ the state and build a classless, stateless society.
Countering the Stranglehold
The stranglehold of Marxism cum communism can and must be effectively countered.
This can be done by several ways-
Firstly, revision of basic textbooks. History plays a crucial role in conditioning the mindset of a generation. It can either make them defeatist or militant. Hence the revision of textbooks is of utmost importance. The current revision of textbooks by NCERT under the present dispensation is a good example.
Secondly, teaching and disseminating information about a society’s indigenous cultural and social roots. For this a dedicated class of like minded intellectuals be done. In India, this is being done by the works of J Sai Deepak, Vikram Sampath, Makarand Paranjape, Devdutt Patnaik etc.
Lastly, the family as a social unit must socialize children to develop a strong, pro-family and pro-social mindset which will, in the long run, help in effectively countering alien ideologies like communism which undermines social cohesion of family as a sociological institution.