The wisdom of mindful gardening

‘Gently darling’ I coaxed my daughter, noticing her tiny fingers pressing the soil around the little marigold seedlings. ‘Beautiful…’ I added, proudly smiling at her, as she squinted her eyes, while looking up.

“Yes, loosen the soil, in the middle, place the plant and gently pat the soil around it’ I continued. She is certainly getting the knack of it, I smiled with the thought. 

With temperatures dipping to 9 degrees celsius in Delhi, my six year old Rebecca is a bundle of wool, as we climbed the steps to our terrace. For us, the Covid 19 Pandemic set of, the gardening bug. Our terrace, for the past year and half has become our garden. Plants, soil and leaf compost from Delhi’s Aurobindo Ashram now occupy a range of containers. Kitchen waste and recycled water regularly disappears into the containers. In our garden - spiders, caterpillars, butterflies, bumble bees, geckos, sparrows, bulbuls, raucous jungle babblers, iridescent pale-billed sicklebills, snails, slugs, earthworms, marauding monkeys, envious neighbours - are all fair play. I am yet to accurately decipher Rebecca’s shrieks, namely to match it with the creature she encounters in our garden. Her eagerness to clamber up the steps and talk to her creepy-crawly and winged 'friends' and plants, easily translates to dirty hands and soiled clothes - Reena’s torment. 

‘Why can’t you just wash up, on the terrace itself …?’ Reena shrugs, ‘coming in and spreading the mess all over the place…’ she admonishes. Rebecca glances at the finger on my lips as I gesticulate hiding behind Reena. Our code for, ‘just don’t say anything …let her scream for a while …’. Gosh, what am I teaching my daughter, I wonder. I am struck by how quickly she is learning. 

Children, I’ve heard, are like seeds. Planted in good soil they will bloom and flourish. Yet, there are those who claim children are raw uncut and unpolished gems, waiting to be discovered. Both perspectives include the stress and storms of life that are integral to the growth and development of children. But what if children, were to be viewed as a verdant plot land. Imagine the variety of flowers, fruits, vegetables, bushes, shrubs and trees that a plot of land could bring forth and the creatures they’d attract - a veritable eco-system. Easy to imagine the gems that could be lying deep inside some of these plots. A well tended plot of land stands in stark contrast to a neglected plot. How do we till and care for our ‘precious plots’ our children?

What do we choose to sow each season? Imagination and technology continue to defy and stretch traditional perspectives and boundaries of land use. Interestingly, the yield from fertile plots are always for 'the other'.

Imagine a classroom of multiple plots facing different directions. What are the north facing parts of a plot? What are the roles of teachers? Teachers as mature plots of land, seeking to pollinate virgin plots? The ravages to a mature plot and the wisdom of fallen leaves offer valuable lessons. The possibilities are fascinating. 

Placing her tiny palms into mine, I ask her, ‘what are you planning to plant after the marigolds?’ almost immediately her face lights up with her toothless grin, ‘some sadabahar, jasmine and rose? … she asks. ‘Why not …sure, we have to get some good mogra, this time …’ I reply. A more pressing question, though, What do I intend to sow … in the precious plot, now snuggly cuddled on my lap …  I begin to wonder.

Another Leaf

 

Another Leaf 

(Father Stanislaus Lourduswami 1937 - 2021)

He walked, sang, drank and danced with the adivasis, drawing from the Tree of Life.

In the dappled shades of the forest he witnessed life and love.

A leaf on a tree he swayed, fluttered and braced against wind and rain, thunder and lightning. 

As a leaf he saw, leaves stripped off branches and branches torn off trees, trees uprooted.

The storms never as cruel as the unrelenting and extractive greed of mendacious policies to sap away the adivasi way of life.

Dismembered, depleted dispossessed, with the adivasis, battered and bruised, he learned to stand, to take a stand, a defender of adivasi rights.

Like a leaf, battered by wind and rain, natural or state devised, he held on, drawing on the tenacity imbibed from generations of dispossessed adivasis.

‘Waiting for bail’, not Stan Swamy … for one willing in life and death, confident, as a fallen leaf, his life too would renew with the Tree of Life.

Saved by the Pandemic - young hearts and minds

 CBSE, CISCE scrap Class XII exams after review ... (June 2021)

Thousands of young hearts and minds - required perforce, in an annual ritual to surrender their unique, capable, curious, and wondrous learning capabilities to the senseless guillotine of the board examinations - have been spared. Ironically, saved by the pandemic. Aren’t we all complicit in this degenerate annual ritual? Some more than others.

For want of an imagination that celebrates human and humane learning, a convenient examination system systematically enervates and obfuscates learners from exploring opportunities to engage with possibilities and growth.

Offering countervailing perspectives, does the pandemic allow us to see, how what is taken for granted about gate-keeping practice and epistemology, invites bad actors to exploit often ignored vulnerabilities?

Online Teaching and Learning: Man ki baat and Kaam ki baat

‘Yaar, maine Karim’s se baat kiya, woh khana pack nahi karte hain …’ his normally upbeat voice sounded a bit dejected this morning. 

Not too sure as to what was coming, I wondered what was I expecting to hear from my friend, Bist. Despite being diabetic and visually challenged, Bist certainly has a healthy appetite at 60 plus. Fiercely independent and pursuing a PhD from DU while holed up in a guest house, Bist, maintains an active life style. Rising by 3 AM, and always keen on catching up with an early morning stroll. During his walks, when greeted, Bist, always greets the other by name. With his ears attuned to an iPhone, he catches up with the national and international - news and views, gossip and banter, orders and requests … Hardly ever lost for words, albeit a flattering few in some languages, Bist is quite capable of looking after himself. 

‘I prefer to have just one nice meal a day … one meal, a day is quite sufficient, in fact, it has become my habit since my college days’, he loves to repeat.  

Not the one to gorge on food, Bist is quite careful with what he chooses to eat. Not averse to non-vegetarian fare, he prefers the vegetarian offerings, particularly when he is up and about. Most recently the highlight of his three month, January to March 2021, sojourn in Goa was marked by his regularity at a Kamat’s restaurant. 

Inoculated with the stipulated ‘two vaccine doses’, Bist looks at the pandemic as a good way to exercise extra caution. Confined to his room, hardly by design and accustomed by now, to collecting food from a nearby hostel, Bist, dearly misses his almost regular forays of heartily tucking into a non-vegetarian menu. Despite his visits to a number of places that serve non-vegetarian, Bist is hardly swayed by most of them, he however, wholeheartedly approves of old Delhi’s ‘Karim’. 

‘Yaar, aajkal, purani Dilli ke, iftaar evenings …’ he stops … and then asks ‘Koi, delivery services bhi hai?’, ‘not too sure …bhai’ I offer. 

After nearly two weeks, he calls again to say, ‘Maine, conveyance ke liye bhi arrange kiya … lekin yaar,  woh khana pack nahi karte hain …’. 

Bist wasn’t complaining about Karim’s Hotel, obviously his taste buds were yearning for more. Oh, am sure he’ll get by, despite his demanding taste buds, I told myself. I’d have let the conversation with Bist pass, just like the many others, if not for a passing remark to Poonam. 

‘Poonam, yeh Karim waale, khana pack kyun, nahi karte hain?’ I asked, she shot back a stare at me, apparently not cued into the conversation, I had had with Bist. After letting her in on what we were chatting about, 

‘Karim’s could earn quite a bit, these days, given the number of foodies they have cultivated …’ she said, almost to herself. 

Going by earlier and current reviews and the word of mouth recommendations, patrons, swear by the food served at Karim’s of old Delhi. Easy to imagine the number of patrons waiting to renew their visits and revisits to Karim’s.

‘Yeah …’ I agreed, even as she added … ‘but … there could be so many other reasons …’ 

‘What if …’ Poonam, asked, ‘Karim’s was actually conveying something … about the unique experience of eating at Karim’s …?’ 

‘What do you mean?” I shot back

‘Karim’s might be wanting to convey …’ she began tentatively, ‘that eating at Karim’s is just not only about the food out there …’ she continued, ‘it’s perhaps the complete experience, the visceral experience of eating out at Karim’s’ that they wish to celebrate and share with their patrons …’ she mused. It was hard to ignore her point. 

‘But, aren’t they losing out on enormous and quick gains … just pack their favourite dishes and sell … am sure lots of people would love to enjoy their Karim’s at home’, I prodded.

 

‘Ever tired, roasted corn on the cob, at SIM’s park in Coonoor, walking and shivering off the light rain and cold, chomping on a mouthful from the steaming cob…’ she asked, ‘as far as i’m concerned, I had lots of corn on the cob … in far too many places, that I care to recall … but they never tasted as sweet … was it the woody wet smells at SIM’s Park …or the fragrance of the roses there …’ she reminisced, and for good measure, continued,

‘Tried chicken at Aslam’s of purani Dilli … amid the wafting aromas of meat being cooked in the multiple ways known best to the culinary adepts at Purani Dilli …?’ 

This was hard to contest, ‘cos no matter how ever carefully you brought back ‘packed stuff’ from ‘purani dilli’ … away from their ‘natural environs’ they always tasted quite different at home. Perhaps, that’s why we love to sit back and enjoy the gladiatorial onslaughts of the Gordon Ramsays and his ilk as they mercilessly eviscerate the culinary wannabes from fobbing off their patrons their legitimate privilege to the visceral experience of dining out. 

Could the envisaged, ‘National Professional Standards for Teachers’ and the, ‘National Mission for Mentoring’ in NEP 2020, double up as the Gordon Ramsays to challenge our educational endeavours in the oft touted New India?

Am not sure, exactly when, but it suddenly struck me … could there be some parallels to the recent adventurism of online teaching and learning that NEW India has frog marched into - courtesy the Covid 19 pandemic and NEP 2020 enthusiasts. Even as we waddle along, almost a year into this unplanned and ill-prepared mode of engaging with young hearts and minds … what would it take for our Institutions of learning and some of bestowed Eminence to declare along with Karim, ‘Hum khana pack nahi karte jain …’ or more appropriately ‘Hum adhigam pack nahi karte hain …’  

When you come to think of it … how many ‘starred’ hotels actually pack their meals for delivery? 

‘Oh, who could ever afford the fare at those ‘starred’ hotels?’ one could counter, 

‘Thank God … for the numerous places that still ‘pack and deliver’ …’ another sighs. 

And the debate goes on, bound to lead up to a lot of hungry people, most off to grab another bite or dial up swiggy. 

The penchant of the Indian mindset to ‘rehash’ and ‘jugaad’ continues to provide a fertile ground for the indiscriminate mushrooming of online teaching workshops and seminars.  While online teaching and learning, promise access, delivery and convenience …  do they actually make up for the inalienable visceral experience that accompanies teaching and learning? What was / is our investment in attending to the proposition of online teaching and learning and to what the proposition of online teaching and learning is about? What were / are our parameters for adequately factoring in the hopes, the fears, the promises, the threats – of those who have a stake in the outcome. 

Online teaching in the hands of untrained and under-motivated teachers soon regresses to an inordinate emphasis on ‘content and teacher-centred teaching’ - the blight of educational systems, the world over. Corcoran (1999) argued that pedagogical goals are found spread out along a spectrum terminating on one end with educational goals and on the other end with indoctrinational goals. Education is something that is done by the student. Indoctrination is something that is done by the teacher. Education has to do with how to think; indoctrination has to do with what to think. Education brings something out of the student; indoctrination puts something into the student. Today, where content and delivery are the privileged modes of online learning transactions, it appears that New India’s education system aided and abetted by NEP 2020 have lost sight of the raging battle on conflicts internal to the social imagination of our times - eg: ideology versus utopia, myth versus critique, tradition versus reason, modernity versus post-modernity and have chosen instead to wage quixotic wars to fudge data in attempts to ramp up literacy rates and GERs. Where online teaching is serenaded as the knight in shining armour in the battle to infuse indoctrination for social engineering, the role of the teacher becomes even more relevant. The best we can trust our best teachers to do is to try to propound views that are worth trying out, worth trying to verify. A new meaning to the old saying: ‘Trust, but verify’. Pedagogy in general and reflexive pedagogy in particular always invites the teacher and the taught to ‘trust and verify’.

When Karim’s refuse to ‘pack their delectables for delivery’ even for, Bist my visually challenged friend, I wonder whether it is a question of their ‘Man ki baat’ or ‘Kaam ki baat’ ? While the former seduces one to blindly ‘trust’ the latter entreats that we ‘verify’. The educational imagination calls for a continuous verification. The visceral experience of the educational imagination is too precious to squander away to the whims and fancies of a neatly packaged chintzy zombie zoom experience. 

Chris Morris backing the BCCI's decision to postpone IPL 2021 ... said “We know the situation in the country is very bad to continue a cricket …” what would it take for our Teaching and Learning Institutions to declare, “We know the educational situation in the country is very bad to continue our mindless online teaching and learning adventurism …”

 Chronos (χρόνος) and Kairos (καιρός)

When breath becomes air …

Nine minutes and 29 seconds

When kairos grasps for breath from the air of chronos

May 25, 2020, April 20, 2021 - chronos or kairos?

George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, Darnella Frazier - children of Gaia and uranos

Snack time - chronos or kairos?

“When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad, I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles. I have a Black father. I have a Black brother. I have Black friends.” 17 year old Darnella Frazier sees, children born of Gaia (Goddess of the Earth) and uranos (God of the sky), being swallowed by ‘chronos’ … every one of the children … the day they were born …

11 hours to deliberate, discern and dedicate chronos to kairos

GUILTY ON ALL 3 CHARGES !!! THANK YOU GOD THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU - chronos … kairos?

Breath and air - life and death - light and dark - chronos and kairos

I am because we are …

REFLEXIVE PEDAGOGY AND THE ACADEMIC HERETIC

 Abstract

The challenges to education-lacking homegrown traditions of scholarly criticism from its early institutional forms and now enmeshed in a global free market determinism, trumpeting ambiguous visions for a new India-are compounded by vacuous utilitarian policy imperatives. A critique of CBET and groupthink is offered as example of the dominant narrative of neoliberal market ideology impacting knowledge and education. The paper posits the reflexive teacher educator as academic heretic-the idol of enlightenment, discovery and resistance-as a useful frame to analyse the epistemologically specious and ideologically unsound challenges facing education. Reflexive pedagogy and the academic heretic are proposed not as fixed definitions, but as a pluralistic, reflexive, interpretive approach to stimulate dialogue, to engage with the tensions of traversing the ethically-bankrupt technocratic management of educational endeavours. The paper offers reflexivity and reflexive pedagogy—a philosophy for and of education—to counter the rapacious onslaughts of neoliberal economics, and the need for reflexive teacher educators through a deeper critique to locate learning in the larger arena of mind and spirit. This paper positions the possibilities of reflexive teacher educators to identify and challenge prevailing orthodoxies and to voice their potentially ‘heretical’ views about education in the 21st century.

Key Words: Academic heretic, CBET, Groupthink, Reflexive Pedagogy, Teacher Educator

Sharing and Learning: A collective, Immersive and Empowering Experience

Spare a thought …

“The ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician. ~ William J. Mayo”

What if someone attempted to rewrite the above …

“The ideal of learning is to eliminate the need of a teacher.”

Ok … now here’s one for you ..

“In our society, unless something can be measured then it doesn't exist. This is especially true in the world of medicine. ~ Michael Perkin”

Attempt to replace ‘something’  … and you get the drift … 

… strange how the disease and deficit model has crept into pedagogies rooted in well-established understandings of education as a collective, immersive, and empowering experience, (CIE) through which students learn how to deliberate, collaborate, and interrogate ( DCI) established … entrenched norms … mindsets…

Spider Speak … anybody?

Spider Speak … anybody ?

“Mary do you, ‘spider talk’? a brief sms to my sister, ‘Anthony, are you alright’? she shot back, what with the relentless virus locking horns with with an equally ‘unreasoning individual’. 

‘I’m, alright’, I assured her and in more colourful Tamil, ‘hit in the head, are you?’ she admonished! Hard to transliterate in English.

“Listen … I’m going to ask you to shift a bit … for just a while’ …I coax … not sure exactly, after how many attempts … a tiny shiny black spider … crawls out from its perch in one of the many containers that have been summarily requisitioned for my new found ‘container gardening sojourn’. 

Wow, I exclaim, she … he …it .. understands. Pavlovian, Quixotic, Mendelesque … I refuse to commit.

While many of my friends are busy with their ‘rendezvous’  avec ‘finir’ and ‘fenetre’ gone ‘soft in the head’ have i? Not terribly worried … i volunteer… 

Container gardening, has made me ‘see more, hear more … ‘ perhaps with a more acute sense of vision, i’d have seen my tiny shiny black spider, yawn in protest at the irregular intrusions. 

Some folks call this ‘mindfulness’ … Wow … now this is GOOD.. right? … 

Ever heard anxious, convent and otherwise educated moms … unravelling the complex philosophy of ‘good touch and bad touch’ … to their little darlings? 

I’d vote for lots of the complex and a bit more of the down-to-earth ‘spider speak’ 

On What Matters?

I’m hardly the poet, artist, actor or writer that I want to be … but I’ve been thinking, especially these days. When we started this lockdown the first one in India on March 24, 2020, in the initial days we laughed a lot ... and talked a lot … and gradually we found ourselves locked down into …  bouts of binge watching, forays into cooking-eating-gardening-exercising, waking up scared at nights, often unable to sleep, mom’s stern stares and dad’s recourse to his designs … I admit, It’s all so hazy, Sundays and Thursdays, days and nights, breakfast-dinner-lunch, sleeping and waking … appear to be no different. 

Everybody’s at home, but are they? What passes off as NEWS  and VIEWS on the TV and the newspapers are no longer as interesting - the fear, anxiety, suspicion and fake news have become toxic. Acts of kindness, incredible feats of courage and determination individual and collective, appear to bloom and wither away in the face of the relentless scorching sun, unsympathetic and myopic political stagecraft. The entire world has perhaps never ever been so collectively concerned over something hardly visible, yet so devastating - COVID 19.

While some of our parents, near and dear ones, and the countless nameless faceless 'other' - risk life and limb to ensure sanity during these crazy disruptive times, frontline workers, essential services, lockdown, infection spread, flattening the curve, second wave, herd immunity and a whole range of new words are seeking traction as active vocabulary. ‘New normal’ is easily the strongest contender. 

Interesting when one refers to norms and normal, these days. Ever noticed?

We were so used to mindlessly embracing and discarding with gay abandon, and hurtling from one fashion to the next, have we paused to ponder - a luxury now afforded by COVID 19, what is it that we now seek to privilege, legitimise and mainstream.

The hitherto unexamined ‘normal’ is now competing against a ‘new normal’ desperately vying for traction, mainstreaming.

Interesting, how the now ubiquitous appendage ‘new’, warrior like is set off on a mission to seize and secure legitimacy.

Closer home, pedagogical adventurism with online teaching and learning, lends credibility to the term ‘Incredible India’. The spectre of an inane examination ostensibly to set off students on a tenuous future reeks of death and despair - the mindlessly crafted putrid aggregated paternalistic adult world view, hell bent on wreaking havoc on young hearts and minds.

Hamlet’s, “there's the rub” reflecting  on the possibility of suicide as a means to an easy end. That perhaps death – which he likens to a “sleep, perchance to dream” may be preferable to life, appears to be a weed germinating in many an aggrieved young heart and mind - in India and generally the world over - unwittingly trapped in an arrogantly aggregated adult world.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet finds ominous resonance with Prof. Satish Deshpande's recent  ... 'In addition to three natural seasons − summer, monsoon and winter – India also has two other seasons that are human inventions. The latter seasons are arguably more important because they host two institutions central to our almost-vishvaguru civilisation – elections and examinations. Each of these five seasons can cause death and devastation ...'

The forced confinement, ironically, of humans has lead to the effulgence of the birds and bees, the air smells sweeter, the ruckus on the streets and roads is missing, even the skies appear unblemished by the metallic monstrosities hogging the airspace. 

Within our dwellings we’ve had glimpses, albeit fleeting, of people,  places and things that hardly matter. And yet we are left wondering ‘on what matters …?’ 

What if someone were to ask you? Hey … what is that matters to you? ‘to me?’ you ask and we reply ‘yes … you heard me … ‘what is it that really matters to you …’? 

Thinking aloud is what some folks call it … you … are about to embark on a journey, an exciting one, I dare say, scary too … walking together we are going to ask ourselves …on what matters? 

So get going, now that you’ve been introduced to the myriad platforms online and offline … share with family, friends and folks …. On What Matters?

COVID -19 and VUCA

VUCA, an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, a combination of qualities that, taken together, characterize the nature of some difficult conditions and situations. 

COVID -19, could well be an acronym that stands for the adjectives: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous

Amid the VUCA and COVID-19, there has never been such an overwhelming universal longing for optimism and a renewal of Faith, Hope and Charity.

Post COVID 19, Will Faith, Hope and Charity characterise the resilience of the human race? or will our instinctive ‘dated attitude and language’ now embellished with new found ‘coping strategies’ hasten to consolidate all the ‘resources’ that are ‘essential’ to ‘mindless survival’? 

While leaders, administrators and quacks pledge and plead for optimism albeit with dated attitudes and language, the youth are seduced into the boiling frog syndrome. Ever imagined the Earth that we will bequeath to our chand ka tukda? 

Seek Forgiveness

More than exploiting the optimism and enthusiasm of our young hearts and minds, we as adults are called to fulfil a very grave responsibility - to seek FORGIVENESS - we need to step out of our smug comfort zones and and declare how we have mindlessly messed up the lives of the future generations ... 

The innocence and the good will of young hearts and minds have been trampled upon and we will never ever be able to repair the untold damage we have caused for generations to come.

Monochromatic or Multihued ?

The ‘warrior’  epithet in the recent past, particularly in India, is rather ubiquitous.  Proudly valorised, and one imagines weaponised, and enjoined on all walks of life. This valorization could well be a misguided and monochromatic view of life, reduced to a myopic ‘win or lose’ vision of life as a pursuit for mindless survival ...

LIFE

IF and LIE - rather curiously make up a fifty and seventy-five percent respectively of the word, LIFE! Life with all its ‘IFs and LIEs’ invites us to embrace the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous and journey on in a human and humane way of being and having.

The Veneer of Religion and Democracy

‘Ma’am, I am very very upset … Yeh ho kya raha hai?’ I heard a student addressing two teachers, right in front of the Department room. It was the almost 12.30 the start of lunch time. Not wanting to intrude, I attempted to walk past them into the Department Room, while getting into the room, I glanced at the student and one of the teachers catching my eye looking at me said, ‘she is really upset …’. I stopped and looked at her bespectacled face, clutching her books tightly, almost as if shielding herself. She now looked at me, ‘why is the Government not doing anything … so many people are dying’ she asked me. She was clearly upset.

‘Oh, if you want the Government to do something …’ I offered, ‘it’s easy, they’ll just ask you to remain at home and assure you that as long as you do nothing, you’ll be safe at home … they’ll protect you’. ‘But what about the people being killed …’ she insisted. I realised the teachers she was talking to, had by now, disappeared. Was I left alone to ‘fend off’ the ‘concerns’ of the student. Were they just her concerns. The gory images of rage, revenge and rampage were bound to sear impressionable hearts and minds. The wanton social media, fake and or forthright was bound to set off physical and mental anguish and angst.   

She stood there, eyes peering at me through her spectacles. ‘what is the solution … to all this?’ she persisted. ‘Think of … this as an accident’ I suggested. ‘An accident?’ she shot back. I realised, I’d need to tread cautiously. Sounding smart or condescending would it help? ‘yes, an accident’ I continued. ‘I am walking on this road, keeping to my side of the road, quite cautious and safely, and hardly a few steps forward, I am hit by a car … What should I do? What should the Government do? …’ The quizzical look on her face, was hardly assuring. ‘At times …’ i added, ‘I imagine that dictators in the past were accidents … in History … costly accidents’. ‘Sir, are you saying what is happening right now is an accident?’ she asked almost in disbelief ‘am really not too sure …’ I whispered.  

‘It all sounds senseless, especially in times like this’. I continued, ‘Sir, what is the solution?’ she persisted,’there must be some solution …’ she trailed off. ‘Have you been to a beach?’ I asked, ‘beach?’ she repeated, ‘yes, sea, ocean … beach’ I offered. ‘Ji, yes … Marina Beach …’ she replied, clearly curious. ‘Look at it this way …’ I began, “have you seen the huge waves near the beach, they are almost constant, the noisy waves hit the beach recede and return …’ the look on her face, was hard to describe. ‘Have you noticed, the waves are always near the shore … and it is not too deep near the shore’ i kept on. ‘yes, we were able to walk into the water …’ she recalled. ‘Perhaps … our sense of Religion and our conception of Democracy could be like the waves … all noise and fury, incessant, mechanical and hardly voluntary …’ I deliberated, ‘and .. am not sure if you ever had an opportunity to sail into the deep ocean … unlike the noisy shores, it is just so calm and quiet … there are no noisy waves and the deep waters are hardly disturbed by weak winds. We are shallow people’ I added looking right into her eyes. ‘Cowards, shallow folks, unwilling to venture into the depth of things … and therefore most of us are condemned to be caught up in the tumult and noise, and accidents …’. ‘Religion … Democracy … and a lot of other things are for most of us  … mere cosmetics … they easily wear off …’ I went on. ’Want to catch a bite, we are almost done?’ one of the teachers shouted from inside the Department room. ‘oh yes …’ I said and excused my self. 

Indigenous India and Climate Change: Techne or Phronesis?

Anthony Joseph, PhD

 

 

A lesson in how to practice recognizing the fundamental truth that every inch of India is Indigenous territory

 

Ki mai koe ki a au,

he aha te mea nui tenei ao:
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
 

If you should ask me what is

the greatest thing in the world,
the answer would be:
It’s people, it’s people, it’s people.
(Maori song)

 

David Attenborough, speaking on behalf of the UN's "people's seat" initiative to give ordinary people a voice, issued a stark warning to the world at the United Nations climate talks in Katowice, Poland, "If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." We face immense challenges on our planet - from climate change to the development of artificial intelligence, fresh water accessibility, the growing threat of disease, and crop failure. Extreme hot weather is getting more common and cold weather more rare. Rising sea levels will soon necessitate mass migrations, and coastal cities aren’t doing enough. In the face of these challenges, mindless developmental agenda riding roughshod on politically motivated affirmative actions are alarmingly bereft of protection and sustainablility narratives.

 

The Dignity and Disaster of Modernity

 

Despair and uncertainty surround us: in the headlines, in our families, and in ourselves. What has led to so much poor performance in the public and private realms: that our schools cannot teach creativity, that our governments cannot predict the disasters that befall us, that our health system will not protect us from pandemics, that our politics will remain polarized, that our economy cannot avoid inequality, and that our industry cannot help but pollute the environment. Perhaps it has its origins in the aspects of pedagogical objectifying, gnostic knowledge and practice reduced to a technical or an intellectual endeavor centered around quantification, intellectual reasoning, and theorizing. As Pinar (2006) points out, “the academic field of education is so very reluctant to abandon social engineering” (p. 109). It also seems as if teachers themselves rely too heavily on the technical-instructional side of education where schools, educational policy, and curricula aim foremost at producing citizens who are ‘productive’ from a societal perspective.

 

 

The ‘dignity’ of modernity that heralded the developments and the differentiation in the exceedingly complex domains of knowledge - science, art and morality, set off in its wake postmodernity’s great disaster, the dis-integration of knowing, valuing and doing. Despite the dignity of these domains, through their specialized paths, have become dissociated from one another, raising questions particularly about indigenous ‘ways-of-knowing and ways-of-being’ - essentially an immersion in practice marked by a deep inseparability between knowledge, ethics and action. This inseparability draws on Aristotle and his concept of phronesis in which knowing, doing and valuing are inseparably intertwined and characteristic of adivasi/indigenous/tribal peoples’ ways of being and having.

 

Techne and Phronesis

 

Aristotle distinguished between the kind of deliberations that were appropriate for making things (techne) and those that were appropriate for acting in the human realm. He used the term ‘phronesis’ to mean a practical wisdom that can address a plurality of values. Considering the nature of ‘phronesis’ – the kind of knowledge that is already not separate from ethics and action, we posit adivasi/indigenous ‘ways-of-knowing and ways-of-being’ as a ‘seamless’ way of being, rather than an artificially induced integration of separate domains of knowledge, ethics and action. We argue for the promotion of such a way of knowing and being that draws on more contemplative directions, which open up creative, ‘unspecialized’ possibilities for feeling, thinking and doing. The term ‘unspecialized’ is developed in relation to Heidegger’s thought and expresses a fundamentally human way of being that cannot be objectified and as such is a deep source of creativity. This ‘creativity of unspecialization’ best flourished in their own domain, where adivasi/indigenous/tribal peoples had ownership of land and forests, which they protected prudently.  Rapacious extractivism developmental agendas demanding dams, industries or other infrastructure, persuaded by techne has colluded to displace not just the adivasi/indigenous/tribal but our very hope to grow and flourish – intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

 

 

The Adivasi/Indigenous

 

Many people learn about Adivasi/Indigenous communities only through the most controversial and confrontational news.  Adivasi/Indigenous peoples’ life projects are largely embroiled in turbulent encounters with extractivism, revealing loss and suffering.  Adivasi/Indigenous ‘ways-of-knowing and ways-of-being’ - ravaged by land rights violations, systemic denial and exclusion of political status, restricted freedoms and denigrated by cultural revitalization programmes - continue to be underrepresented and undervalued. The relevance and urgency of nuanced conversations with the time-honoured practices of indigenous self-determination and cultural renewal are now stifled by dominant narratives of efficiency, assessment, and productivity.

 

Mainstream privileged narratives’ scant regard - for the effects of early influences, significant others, challenges and opportunities, human agency, and personal and professional capital of the adivasi/indigenous - is consistent with the administrative policies that have constituted the ‘tribes’ and their traditions as distinct from Indian society in general and have thus played a major role in their marginalisation and deprivation.

 

 

 

The Adivasi/indigenous’ journey to make sense of his/her life and work through different layers of historical, societal, and institutional transformation situated at the intersection of history, culture, and society where the search for personal identity and political consciousness becomes a lifelong project recognizes both - the notion of knowledge is politicized by the dominant culture and the skewed paternalist welfare and development framework of India’s tribal policies.

 

Despite the aggressive conceptual imperialism and the imposition of exogenous categories of techne, the phronesis of the adivasi/indigenous/tribal is best demonstrated in the everyday ‘creativity of unspecialization’. Such a creativity celebrates a pathic understanding a language that is sensitive to the experiential, moral, emotional and personal dimensions of life. This fundamental human way of being recognizes and demonstrates how indigenous ecological knowledge contributes to our understanding of how we live in our world (our world views), and in turn, the ways in which humans adapt to climate change and forestall ‘the extinction of much of the natural world.’

 

Narrative Interpretation: Tacit and Explicit, Analogue and Digital

 

Swedish scholar, Oscar Öquist (1992), once complained that everything he loves about people appears to have gone awry. Adapting his sentiments we posit, mainstream narratives of dubious progeny championing conceptual imperialism or the imposition of exogenous categories, has rendered everything we love about people in a new narrative interpretation – the tacit and analogue in our complexity, our vagueness, our irrationality, and our insecurity, in other words, our humanness – is being persecuted and demeaned by technology’s distant, logical, explicit, and digital ideals. The values we are (mis)led to cherish today a forced incorporation of expressions of modernity – such as efficiency, assessment, and productivity – leave no room for softer, human qualities such as intuition, emotions, imagination, and creativity. They are denigrated as indigenous, or immature. And yet we instinctively and implicitly know how important these qualities are for human growth and development.

 

The Road Ahead: Universal Subjectivism

 

Despite techne’s brash  exertion of its myopic techno-rational authority on Viktor Frankl, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and a host of others … they lived to tell their tales, the triumph of the unwieldy influence of effulgent phronesis, despite the threats, phoenix like it continues to blossom into a myriad forms – existential therapy, non-violence and forgiveness. 

 

The invitation to Adivasi/Indigenous peoples’ ‘ways-of-knowing and ways-of-being’ is the call to self-reflection and change in certain mainstream and often-taken-for granted views of privilege in our way of thinking. We are called upon (usually implicitly, but often explicitly) to think about how we think and to challenge our assumptions. It is a call for all of us to rediscover the indigenous nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried in us that will make tomorrow better than today. Despite the ravages of the rapacious, the eco-humanist manifesto of adivasi/indigenous/tribal peoples’ phronesis not only offers much food for thought but, more importantly, is an urgent and inspiring call to action - raising awareness and increasing happiness.

 

Dutch philosopher Floris van den Berg proposes a new perspective, called universal subjectivism, which can be adopted by anyone regardless of religious or philosophical orientation. It takes into consideration the universal capacity for suffering and, through raising awareness, seeks to diminish that suffering and increase happiness. With consistent and compelling moral reasoning, van den Berg shows that the world can be organized to ensure more pleasure, beauty, justice, happiness, health, freedom, animal welfare, and sustainability.

 

References

Pinar, W.F. (2006). The synoptic text today and other essays. Curriculum development after the

reconceptualization. New York: Peter Lang.

 

Öquist, O. (1992). Tyst erfarenhet. Stockholm: Carlssons.