What No One Told You About Gandhi’s ‘Punishment Posting’ and Other Changes in the DU Syllabus
Rajshree Chandra | 24 June 2023 | The Wire
Representative image of Delhi University. Photo: Facebook.
Years ago when I began teaching Indian political thought, I was as much a student as a teacher of this course. As famously said by Paolo Freire, “whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching ”. I learnt to understand that a thinker’s agenda is largely set by the pressing political issues of the day, and that developments in knowledge, ethics and politics may alter our assumptions about history, ideas and people. But I also learnt that these altered assumptions cannot become bases for judgements and aspersions. I learnt that it is important to read history with compassion, without taking sides and, also, without forsaking critical reading.
As many disciplines in Delhi University (DU) undergo chop and change under the aegis, umbrella and sanction of the new National Education Policy (NEP), it’s important to assess this pedagogical exercise – the discipline of political science being a point in case. Three thinkers from DU political science syllabus – Savarkar, Iqbal, Gandhi – and three reasons to be dismayed as regards their inclusion, exclusion and “punishment posting” respectively.