Organisers
Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, Varanasi
The Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi
Indigen Research Foundation, Pune
World Social forum, Nairobi
20-25 January ,2007
Invitation
This is to invite you to a discussion on what constitutes
emancipatory resistance to the New Empire. Is radically opposing
American wars in Afganistan and Iraq central to it? Will fundamental opposition
to the policies of the WTO, and in the process standing with the peasants
and workers of the world, open a radical path? Opposition to Empire at this
juncture is being interpreted as opposition to America (of course not the
people of America). The two world wide focuses of such opposition today are:
one, Islamic militancy and two, the World Social Forum (WSF). Where as the
Islamic opposition is centered in West Asia and mobilises Muslims all over
the world, the WSF is polycentric and derives its leadership (and main strength)
from the emerging left in many countries of Latin America. The gathering
of people in hundreds of thousands in many cities across the world in solidarity
against war in Iraq and opposition to WTO in Seattle, Cancun, Prague etc
have found enough media coverage. These are largely guided by liberal and
welfare thought. Add to these the innumerable local resistances all over
the world against expansion of the multinational corporations and for control
over natural resources by the local population. Many of these have a large
place for Gandhi in their way of thinking. This perhaps broadly sums up the
scene of resistances.
The resistances have all steered clear of both the reality
and the language of Information and Communication technologies. There is
no doubt that the American wars, the international trade under WTO and
multinational corporation’s grab of the natural resources constitute
very real issues threatening life and subsistence on a world wide scale.
But should radical politics not pay attention to the reality and discourse
around ‘knowledge’ which is fast changing the themes, criteria
and paradigm of all kinds of concerns and discourses, political, social,
philosophical, scientific, all. Is it also not true that the key instrument
which is making such exploitation of men , women and nature possible is
the new Information and Communication Technology and the world of Internet?
Is this instrument socially and politically neutral (in the ultimate analysis)
or is it also a carrier of a new ideology of reorganisation of the world
in which the majority shall again remain deprived, marginalised and oppressed?
Is the radical politics taken in by the speed , manner and extent of the
organisation of knowledge? Is it left far too behind by the speed
of the new Communication? Does it have no ideological wherewithal to confront
the ‘charm’ of the new connectivity and the virtual world?
Is the sacrifice of countless numbers in the struggle for social justice
and genuine rights destined ones again to produce a variant of the capitalist
world?
This call for a dialogue in the Nairobi WSF is a
call to address questions regarding radical politics in a world increasingly
dominated by the Computer, the Mobile and the Internet. If we want to stand
consistently against the trade practices of WTO, against the American wars
and against the tightening claws of multinational corporations and if we
wish to produce an image of a new and different world , then should we
not be discussing the relation between knowledge and politics in this New
Age, as it is shaping and as it ought to be in the human interest.
Join us in this dialogue for emancipatory search.
Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, Varanasi
The Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi
Indigen Research Foundation, Pune
Radical Politics & the Knowledge Question
Taking the Knowledge Debate to the People
Dialogue on Knowledge in society IV
World Social Forum, Nairobi
January 2007
Organisers
Vidya Ashram
SN 10/82 A, Ashok Marg, Sarnath, Varanasi-221007
Phone: 0542-2595120, 2595196
The Gandhian Institute of Studies
Rajghat, Varanasi-221001
Phone: 0542-2431099
Indigen Reaserch Foundation
247/3/1, Sadafuli Park, Baner, Pune-411007
Phone: 020-27298293
VIDYA ASHRAM
Vidya Ashram, started in 2004, is a place in Sarnath, Varanasi. It is devoted
to a new dialogue on knowledge and an equal place for lokavidya in
this dialogue. Its objective is to build a place where the knowledge activity
finds a new expression, where, knowledge and ordinary life gel with one
another, where, they empower each other for the building of a new society.
THE GANDHIAN INSTITUTE OF STUDIES
The Gandhian Institute of Studies, is supported by the Central & the
State Governments for studies into society. It was founded in 1960 by Loknayak
Jayaprakash Narayan at Rajghat, Varanasi. The Institute has all along tried
to build a link between the Gandhian movement and the Social Sciences. Jayaprakash
ji had expressed that if this effort succeeds, its consequences will be of
incalculable value.
INDIGEN RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Indigen Research Foundation was founded in Pune in the year 2001. Its chief
object is to critically analyse and appreciate the relationship of the
Information and Communication Technologies with the society. It has been
involved in knowledge based philosophical, social, economic, political
and cultural analyses of social changes in the wake of the Information
Age.
Contact Persons:
Sunil Sahasrabudhey : Faculty, The Gandhian Institute
of Studies, Varanasi & President, Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, Varanasi
Mob.: +919839275124, e-mail: budhey@gmail.com
Dr. K.K. Surendran : Secretary, Indigen Research Foundation, Pune. Ph: +91712-2520043, e-mail : k.k.surendran@gmail.com
Avinash Jha : Coordinator, Dialogues
on Knowledge in Society, & Librarian, Centre for Studies in Developing
Societies, Delhi,
Mob. +919911145045, e-mail: kalisaroj@gmail.com
Dr. Chitra Sahasrabudhey: Programme Co-ordinator, Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, Varanasi. Ph: 0542-2595196, e-mail: vidyaashram@vidyaashram.org
Dr. Muniza R. Khan : Registrar, Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi. Ph: +91-542-2431099, e-mail: gisvns@yahoo.co.in
Dr. Amit Basole: Manager, Vidya Ashram Website & Research Scholar, Dept. of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, U.S.A. Ph: 001-413-6652463, e-mail: abasole@econs.umass.edu
Expected Contribution : Rs. 25/- (or more)
Published by: VIDYA ASHRAM, SN. 10/82A, Ashok Marg, Sarnath,
Varanasi-221 007,
Ph:
0542-2595120/ 2595196
Printed by: Satnam Printers, Pandeypur, Varanasi
****************************************************************************************************************************
Radical Politics & the Knowledge Question
21st century begins with knowledge moving to the center stage of human activity
and the demise of radical politics as it was known and understood through
out the 19th and 20th century. Radical politics then centred around production
which was at the centre of human activity both in theory and practice since
the Industrial Revolution. Means of production, their ownership, control,
management, mode of production, village industries, decentralized production
etc. constituted the hard bases in the context of which ideas of equality,
liberty, right, freedom, brotherhood etc. assumed their real life meanings.
What now?
The knowledge idiom tends to be ubiquitous now. There is talk about knowledge
society, knowledge economy, knowledge work, knowledge management, knowledge
dialogue etc. Internet is the new place of knowledge and activity related
to it. A new world is said to be in the making, the virtual world. So there
is a virtual counterpart of everything in the real world. There are virtual
communities, virtual arts, virtual games, virtual experiments, virtual sex,
everything. This is not the world of representations. It is a real new world,
a world of knowledge and its activity. If virtuality defies understanding
today so does knowledge in its new avatar.
There is neither any misunderstanding nor disagreement that there exists
a digital divide which is growing. Those on the internet and those not on
it are moving further away from each other in their material well being,
methods of work (or lack of it), places of habitat, environmental conditions,
modes of entertainment, everything, in one word in their life activity. These
two worlds on the two sides of digital divide are not just very heavily connected
with each other but they are connected in a cause and effects relationship.
Radical politics is the solution of the riddle of this relationship.
In so far as a large majority is deprived of food, shelter, education, healthcare
and so on which makes their life sick both physically and spiritually and
makes them die out of turn again and again, nothing less than a radical change
is the demand of the times. But they are also deprived of science and arts
making it imperative that the radical solution be emancipatory. And who liberates
whom? They must liberate themselves. But then what are their sources of strength
to do it?
What are the sources of strength of the people in the Age of Information,
Globalisation and the New Empire? This is same as asking what ways are open
to the people to effectively deal with the powers of Knowledge Management,
Global market and the American Wars. Does knowledge in society constitute
the ultimate source of value and strength of the people in their struggle
for emancipation?
This booklet presents a possible brief overview of the situation in which the relation between radical politics and knowledge may be discussed today. It is organised under the following heads.
* The Change
* Effects on People’s Lives
* Resistances
* Knowledge Basis of Resistances
* Lokavidya and Ordinary Life
Lokavidya is a term understood by the speakers of most of the Indian languages. ‘Loka’ means ‘people’, it also means ‘world’. ‘Viya’ is ‘knowledge’ with ‘wisdom’ etc. It is understood somewhere in interaction of knowledge, science, art, language, philosophy, wisdom, reason, faith etc.
There is all round change in what is being called the transition from the industrial society to a knowledge society. There are economic, social and political changes all over the world. At a global level there is a redistribution of power and emergence of new forms of domination, deprivation and marginalization . Industry, agriculture, education, science, art, trade, media, forms of entertainment, the human habitat, connectivities, governance and relation between nations, everything is changing in a manner not easily understood through the received theories. We shall in what follows try to provide a sketch of major changes in all these spheres.
1. Industry :
(i) First world to Third world
(ii) Big units to small units
(iii) Production to management
(iv) Variety of knowledge a new resource
(v) Information is the new form of capital
2. Agriculture :
(i) Chemical to Bio-agriculture
(ii) Genetically modified seeds, the new enigma
(iii) International trade and moving-in of the multinationals.
(iv) Subsistence to commercial agriculture on small plots
3. Education :
(i) Class-room to Internet
(ii) State sponsorship to private enterprise
(iii) Science and humanities to computer and management.
(iv) Higher education beyond the reach of most due to high
costs.
4. Trade :
(i) National control to WTO
(ii) New areas - food, education, health care,
entertainment, knowledge.
5. Knowledge :
(i) Production of knowledge to management of knowledge
(ii) New methods of organisation and communication of information
(computer and internet)
(iii) New forms and places of Knowledge activity. Virtual domain
as the new epistemic enabler.
(iv) Growing importance of language studies
(v) Biology receiving more attention than the harder
sciences of physics and chemistry.
(vi) Representation overtakes reality not just virtually as in
post modern thought but through virtuality as a real phenomenon
(vii) Knowledge in society , with the people , taking more public forms
, both as a new resource for the development of the Information Society and
as providing basis for the development of the people’s standpoint in
the Information Age.
6.The City :
(i) From a place of production to being a place for the market.
(ii) The poor are externed.
(iii) The new city shall correspond to the new social division – the
digital divide. The city shall now house the new privileged.
7. Media and Entertainment :
(i) Explosion in personal communication methods : mobile,
e-mail.
(ii) Cable TV: the new mesmerizing phenomenon in the mass-media.
It takes cinema, serial, music, news and games to a toxic level.
(iii) Tourism on a new scale.
(iv) Monopoly in media and entertainment industry.
This makes information flow extremely
selective.
The entire industry serves
corporate interests.
8. Internet:
(i) The unlimited and unconstrained source of information,
communication and entertainment.
(ii) The new virtual location for inter-personal action like
community formation, economic exchange, political mobilisation, education, management,
governance and so on.
(iii) The new location for doing science, art, games etc.
(iv) A virtual new world in the process of creation.
9. Industrial to Information Age:
From capitalism where the bourgeoisie mobilises capital and concentrates political
power primarily through the organisation of industry
to
the New Empire where knowledge is being organised as
the basis of reorganisation of capital and political power.
10. The Difference between
Industrial Society Knowledge Society
Labour is oraganised Information is organised
Science
occupies the commanding KM
occupies the commanding
position
in the sphere of knowledge position
in the sphere of knowledge
University
is the place Internet
is the location
where
knowledge is of
organisation of
organised knowledge
It
was built through It
is being built via
Colonisation Globalisation
It
had its center in It
has its center in
Europe America
11.Nation and State :
(i) Relation between nation and state has
weakened.
(ii) State now lifts national constraints on capital, goods,
finance, people, security, values, the human dimensions, natural resources
etc.
(iii) The state is no more ‘responsible’ to those
who give it its legitimacy, the nation and the people. (iv)Development and
welfare agenda of the state have gone overboard, the nation watches in despair.
12. Imperialism to the New Empire :
(i) Break down of the relation between the nation
and state is hand-in-glove with the break down of the Neo-colonial or the
Imperial world order.
(ii) With the new connectivity through the Information
and Communication Technologies ( ICTs ), a new world order is in the making.
This as the New Empire or just the Empire.
(iii) The new order is founded on the Digital Divide. The relation
between the two sides of this divide is fundamentally that of exploitation.
(iv) This exploitation is the fountainhead of the new wars and
all the new forms of injustice and discrimination like the displacements,
control of resources, rules of trade under WTO, knowledge patenting laws
etc.
(v) Whereas the world order under Imperialism was governed by
national states which were equal de-jure, the world order in the Empire is
governed by a hierarchically structured state system (or just state) with
apex at the head of the Empire.
Development of the network society has led to the much talked about Digital Divide. The divide has inherited regional, class, gender and racial dimensions from the Industrial Age. Politics however has taken a nosedive and refuses to attend to the problems of the people. The new concerns of development through ICTs tend to persuade the nation of the price of such development. This price is being paid by the people, who are on the other side of the digital divide. An overview may look something like the following :
1.Workers
:
(i) Loss of work
(ii) Break down of unions
(iii) Uprooting of urban settlements
(iv) Loss of wages, loss of social and economic security earned
through more than 100 years of struggles and sacrifices.
(v) Plight of workers in hardware computer industry and the call
centers.
2. Peasants/Farmers :
(i) Fall in real income.
(ii) The trap of multinational initiatives both in inputs
and forward linkages.
(iii) Inability to cope with extensive commercialisation, monetisation,
banking system, loans and the withdrawal of subsidies.
(iv) Land acquisition by the government for special economic
zones and development of residential complexes.
(v) Relative lowering of prices of agricultural products
(vi) Suicides of Indian peasants
(vii) Legitimisation of traditional knowledge of agriculture with the
farmers.
3. Artisans :
(i) They
are no more the outcastes they were in the industrial society.
(ii) Their knowledge and skills are in a process of relegitimisation
but that alone remains his/her ; finance, market and raw material is further
pushed away into the control of alien forces.
(iii) The wage rate has further declined and there is also decline
in the real income.
(iv) Strong ups and downs in different trades . The weaver is
hit on a large scale.
(v) New classes of artisans have come into existence e.g. those
with media skills, language skills and software competencies.
4. Women :
(i) Further
commodification generally and particularly through entertainment industry.
(ii) Greater opportunity for work due to proliferation
of soft jobs.
(iii) Greater suffering as domestic managers of worker’s,
peasant’s and artisan’s families.
(iv) The disconnect between the two sides of the digital divide
provides greater scope for women’s knowledge significant for processes
doable in and around the household or in an extended neighbourhood.
5. Tribals :
(i) Transition
from being outcastes to a place in society expanded through the new connectivity
(ii) Speeds up formation of classes in tribal society
(iii) Affected as workers , peasants and artisans.
(iv) Relegitimisation of their knowledge of nature and natural
processes.
6. Small Shop-keepers :
(i) Uprooting
from the main market places.
(ii) Increase in numbers because of large scale displacement
from industrial activity and loss of jobs in the middle range.
(iii) Loss of business due to Multinationals entry in the retail
market.
7. Youth :
(i) Education
becomes very expensive.
(ii) Low-end jobs have very low returns.
(iv) Swelling of the ranks of unemployed.
(v) Disquieting future scenario of shine, fun and ‘high’ life
attainable only by very small number.
(vi) Toxicity, instability and insecurity in the new jobs in
marketing, entertainment and media.
8. Middle classes :
(i) Marked increase in social and economic insecurity.
(ii) Self-employment is less rewarding and more unstable.
(iii) Reduction in welfare benefits of salaried employees.
(iv) New opportunities in software, communications, media and
1. Islamic Militancy :
(i) This is primarily anti- America.
(ii) It is centered in West Asia.
(iii) It mobilises Muslims all over the world.
(iv) Both anti-America and anti Israel mobilisation is highly
ideological.
2. Anti-Globalisation Movement :
(i) World Trade Organisation (WTO ) faces opposition all
over the world. Organisations of workers and peasants are at the vanguard.
(ii) Opposition to Globalisation often shapes as opposition
to America in concrete cases and also generally.
(iii) The Left in Latin America is emerging with greater power
with an anti-America focus.
(iv) World Social Forum (WSF) is the new focus for secular mobilisation
all over the world. It mops up to a great extent the anti-Globalisation Movement.
3. Anti-War Movement:
(i) The American wars in Afganistan
and Iraq are opposed by people on a very large scale.
(ii) Anti-globalisation movement in large part overlaps
with this.
4. Movement Against displacement :
Following are out standing types of displacement which face opposition by the displaced. The civil society organisations have come forward but political parties stay aloof.
(i) Reorganisation of market is throwing
out small shops, hawkers etc.
(ii) Reorganisation of the city-habitat, transport, infra-structure—is
uprooting the settlements of workers, artisans and those earning their livelihood on
the pavement.
(iii) River projects and land lease to corporations are displacing
peasants and tribals.
5. Resistance to social discrimination.
Discrimination based on gender, caste, race and religion continues
and also faces resistance from the discriminated.Such resistance is mostly
local but sometimes organised on the political level.
6. Movement for Control Over Natural Resources:
(i) Resistances to acquisition of land by
government and corporations.
(ii) Movement for control of forests and mountains by the
local populations.
(iii) Opposition to extensive use of water by multinational corporations.
7. Free and Open Software Systems Movement :
(i) Movement against ownership of software systems
and against copyrights.
(ii) Building and popularising free and open software systems.
(iii) Legal contests
8. Movement against patenting of Indigenous Knowledge by Multinationals.
(i)Movement for community rights on indigenous and traditional knowledge
(ii)Legal contests by civil society organisations.
The resistances may be divided into different categories depending upon their ideological and knowledge bases.
1. Islamic militancy or other smaller religion based struggles are based on religious ideology and knowledge. That is, they have their basis in knowledge systems belonging to periods before the Industrial Age.
2. The Left movement derives its ideological and knowledge basis from the Industrial Age. It accepts Science and the Scientific Method as the hard core basis of liberation ideology.
3. The Anti-globalisation movement is a mix of many types. One finds in different places allegiances to different traditions—Marxist, Gandhian, liberal and also local traditions. Most of these are open toward traditions of people’s knowledge (lokavidya).
4. Resistance to displacement is a spontaneous life saving move. Its ideological and knowledge relationships are not well defined.
5. The struggles against social discrimination (with some exceptions) valued Science and saw fulfillment of their goals in the Industrial society. However as it has come to pass, it was not to be. The struggles continue with ‘social equality’ as their supreme value and are open to respecting and accepting knowledge other than Science.
6. Movement for control over natural resources like water, forest and land has strong continuity with political focuses of ‘control of raw material’ and ‘ land to the tiller’ from the Industrial Age, but sufficiently open to shape itself on knowledge bases other than Science. Affinity with knowledge in the society, among the people is often well identifiable.
7. Free software movement is related to the importance of knowledge activity on the Internet. They oppose knowledge activity and knowledge management being captive to corporate business.
8. The stand against private ownership of indigenous or traditional knowledge through patents by companies has a streak that grants the status of knowledge to what people know, do and think.
9. So as we travel across resistances we encounter following different knowledge types in society :
· Religious knowledge
· Science
· Knowledge activity on the Internet
· Knowledge in society with the people.
The first three are streams of organised knowledge.
10. Perhaps one can say now that none of these organised knowledge bases
separately or together suffice to provide a sufficient basis for radical
politics, that is for emancipatory ideology. In
the present society, dominated as it is by organised knowledge systems, there
is little respect for the knowledge in society which makes
it an uphill task for it to stake a claim as sufficient basis for radical
politics. This is where we stand today and this is how we stand beaten today.
The way out lies perhaps in an intrinsically open dialogue between the different
knowledge streams or knowledge locations. But no dialogue can proceed without
its normative framework, the common ground. This normative framework must
derive from ideas of knowledge and life which are not conditional to contingencies
of human construction but are more in the nature of being species-specific
to human beings.
1. Unconditional knowledge and unconditional life is lokavidya and ordinary life. Lokavidya is the knowledge with the people which changes with their experience, needs, change of ethical and aesthetic contexts and so on. It incorporates their way of thinking, principles of organisation, mode of abstraction etc. It is made up of a body of information, practices, techniques, expertise and what have you. There is nothing in lokavidya which is not changeable. It grows with ordinary life, gels with it and never dies, because ordinary life never dies. Ordinary life is life without condition. It assumes no science, no technology, no religion, no methods of organisation and communication of knowledge, it assumes nothing. It is not true, austere or moral life, for there is falsehood, extravaganza and immorality in ordinary life. But it has the criteria of truth, morality, justice, wisdom etc. in it.
2. Lokavidya constitutes
the epistemic strength of the people. It is constituted of those traditions
of knowledge which refuse to die and produce ever new modes of subsistence,
innovation and growth under oppression, marginalisation or distortion by
alien intervention. Ironically they die out if the bearers of these traditions
become expansionist, colonisers and oppressors. This is a kind of socio-epistemic
law. So lokavidya is an inexhaustible source of strength
of the people. The chief value associated with lokavidya is that
of ordinary life. Not austere life, not simple life, just ordinary life.
From the twin concepts of lokavidya and ordinary life we can proceed
to develop concepts which would enable us to build emancipatory resistance
both in the epistemic realm and the realm of physical activity.
3. The new ruling classes are emerging and organising themselves with ‘knowledge’ at the center of theory and practice, ‘knowledge management’ being the most prized (and priced ) theoretical as well as practical activity. This makes the ‘digital divide’ a radical ‘knowledge divide’, for the other side consists mainly of knowledge in society, lokavidya, which is expected increasingly to assimilate science and religious knowledge into it as it engages itself in struggle across the digital divide.
4. The life on the Internet is leading to fantastic imageries for human life, imageries which were never part of human imagination, even fiction, what with virtual experiment, cyber sex and the like. This is life without contact with the world of things, men, women, other objects. So it also produces hankering for ordinary life which is just human and natural and does not assume any technology.
5. We do not assume that one or other form of knowledge can not contribute to development of emancipatory politics, for we think that knowledge can not essentially be limited. Every concept, piece of information and even method of inference of a type of knowledge may be limited (say by its historical roots, cultural or regional genesis and application or by embodying elements of some specific cosmology etc.), but knowledge per se is not limited in any of its locations. So what is proposed is a dialogue between all locations of knowledge. . Lokavidya and ordinary life constitute our normative framework for this dialogue between various streams of knowledge, locations of knowledge. Since lokavidya and ordinary life are not just primary expressions of people’s knowledge and life but also constitute the primary sources of strength of the people, therefore the normative framework of lokavidya and ordinary life radically favours political formations for emancipation of the people from the digital divide.
6. Lokavidya standpoint is the people’s standpoint in the Age of Information. To say that there exist so many respectable and genuin traditions of knowledge is not to say that some or all of them have answers to people’s problems and a sufficiently wide basis for reconstructing the world differently. To say that lokavidya and ordinary life reinforce, enliven, protect and move each other is not to say that they are complete unto themselves and the ideology they may spin out has recepies for reconstruction of another world. It is onlyto say that they constitute our starting point, constant reference and also the ultimate criteria. Lokavidya standpoint is the standpoint of truth and justice in the Age of Information . It enables us to fight against falsehood imposed upon the world in the name of a future globaland connected world, courtesy Globalization and Knowledge Management. It enables our struggles to last out because it enables us to think differently.What is common between Islamic resisters, Gandhians, Marxists and innumerable local traditions and formations in their resistance and campaign against American expansion? It is their commitment to the interest of the people and to justice. This commitment isrooted in the respective traditions of thought and knowledge. Lokavidya standpoint is the standpoint of respect to these traditions of knowledge and many more. People’s struggles alone shall transform these traditions into new contemporary versions able to challenge the basis of the present society and hold a promise for a realizable different world.
Dialogues on knowledge in society prepare us for knowledge satyagraha.
If we understand and accept that knowledge ought to really inhabit in the
ordinary life of the people then we start understanding the meaning of this
satyagraha. If the ordinary people, peasants, artisans, women, adivasis and
very small business types have survived the onslaught of imperialism and
colonial domination and if at some level they have been able to protect (and
also enrich) their knowledge, their methods of logic and justice, their ideas
of organisation and education and their values and relationships, it is because
they adopted the course of knowledge satyagraha. Now the technology of computer
and communication has built a basis for reorganisation of imperialism into
a new Empire. This is happening for everybody to see in the American
leadership. The question that we wish to raise is whether knowledge satyagraha
is one of the chief instruments of challenge to this Empire. And if yes,
how?
Today if we ask about the locations of knowledge in society, four distinct
places may be identifiable:—(i) Monasteries, (ii) Universities,
(iii) Internet and (iv)
Ordinary Life. The paradigms of knowledge in different
places are different. Their philosophies are different and their roles in
society are different too from one another.
Knowledge in the monasteries has an other worldly element
in it. Such knowledge does not render itself to tests on concrete criteria.
Due to the nature of this knowledge and its spread in society different monasteries
and sects tend to support communal and sectarian politics.
Knowledge in the university is based in science. Its development
in Europe can be clearly seen from the 17th century. Europe has during this
period ruled almost over the entire world. The Industrial Revolution and
Colonisation were the great (mis)happenings. Societies world over got disorganised
and their resources plundered by the West, a loot which still continues.
Science provided the knowledge basis to all this and worked hand-in-glove
with the ruling classes. The university teaches this science and models all
enquiry after this science. History, sociology, psychology, art criticism
everything attempts to structure itself according to the paradigm of science.
In fact, the modern University and Science are as if born together and together
with Capitalism and the State. This is the ind ld whose knowledge is Science
which resides in the University.
Internet is the new place of knowledge. Here knowledge
shapes itself as Knowledge Management (KM). The epistemic activity on the
Internet has a different mould altogether. The way of thinking, mode of argument,
methods of investigation and hypothesizing, the idea and practice of team
work, everything isdifferent from theknowledge in the University. KM is inventing
new paradigms for reconstitution of the ruling classes and of their relationships
with other classes. In fact, Knowledge Management is laying the foundations
of a new world. It is this which is being calledthe Information Age. Promise
of a better world for the poor is part of the new propaganda. The Internet
arrived in 1990 and in the first 15 years new type of businessmen and enterprises
have amassed unprecedented fortune and neither the number of poor has changed
nor their level of poverty, if at all the change has been for the worst.
If we just have a look at our neighbourhood, we find that peasants, workers,
artisans and adivasis have incessantly faced disorganisation of their work
and displacement of the habitat. Their poverty has no doubt increased.
Everybody is familiar with ordinary life as a place of knowledge but
may not be conscious of it. The knowledge of the artisan or peasant is not
just a store of technical information and competencies. Ideas of health and
education are part of it. Like women and adivasis they too have a world view
based on natural values. This is lokavidya. It
is not something which is left (over) with them in spite of the modern development.
It has its own dynamic. Technology, ideas of education and methods of healthcare
etc. which developed in the industrial society have on a certain scale been
internalised by lokavidya. Lokavidya shall not hesitate
also in borrowing from the‘knowledge based society’ albeit it
will do so through its own criteria, methods of testing and goals. Lokavidya has
played a pivotal role in the survival of people through the constant onslaught
on them under imperialism of the industrial period. Insistence on the primacy
of lokavidya in idea and in practice is what is Knowledge Satyagraha.
We are used to of debates on knowledge which are not understood by everybody.
Not because people are not sufficiently educated but because the methods
of the University (and now of Internet too) are so devised that everybody
should not understand. If another world is to be built, the debate on knowledge
should be such that everybody understands it. If this does not happen any
change would only prepare another edition of this very world. So we propose
to experiment with this method for a knowledge dialogue: Unwritten grassroots
debate on basic theses. Debate on the truth and falsehood, on profit and
loss, on aesthetics and ethics. It is a way of preparing ourselves and others
to join the larger society in knowledge satyagraha.
Speak out! And choose the path of non-cooperation.