What if the university is a parrot’s training?

Abstract

ed from life 8 . . . and the spiritual education, which the students had, was a part of the spiritual life itself which comprehended all life. . . . Such an institution must group round it all the neighbouring villages and virtually unite them with itself in all its economic endeavours. . . . In a word, it should never be like a meteor – only a stray fragment of a world – but a complete world in itself, self-sustaining, independent, rich with ever renewing life, radiating light across space and time, attracting and maintaining round it a planetary system of dependent bodies, imparting life-breadth to the complete [hu]man, who is intellectual as well as economic, bound by social bonds [not the “greed of profi t”] and aspiring towards spiritual freedom. ( Tagore 2011 : 160) The nascent idea of Development Practice ( not Development Studies), which at present has taken the form of an ‘immersion’ 9 and ‘action research’-based M.Phil programme 10 at Ambedkar University, Delhi, tries to make two moves with respect to the discussion above. One, it tries to inaugurate in the “beehive” of the human sciences the foreclosed question of praxis, praxis as the “alluring call to a slave revolt” against university in particular and education in general. Two, it also tries to engage creatively with what Lacan designates as the register of the ‘slave’, or the register of what could be called the ‘subaltern’; engage with the slave’s knowledge-praxis, as also work with the slave (and not on the slave) for a transformed future. Needless to reiterate, it is diffi cult to fi nd a home for such an idea – an idea that draws heavily from Tagore’s turn to Sriniketan, which in turn is a turn to (transformative) praxis and the rural life-world – in the standard imagination of the university. The question that thus haunts the idea of Development Practice is not just whether one is political or not, which has now become the paradigmatic caliper in the human sciences. The question is whether one is engaged in transformative praxis. How, however, does one distinguish between ‘being political’ and ‘being engaged in transformative praxis’? How does one distinguish between ‘interpreting the world’ and ‘transforming the world’ (questions of transformation, however, require an immediate attention to questions of ethics, justice and even 15040-2010d-1pass-r02.indd 154 7/16/2018 12:48:35 PM A parrot’s training? 155 well-being)? One way, one demonstrative way, of distinguishing the two would be in terms of the distinction between anti-capitalism and post-capitalism. Anti-capitalism is Sangharsh ; it is about questioning surplus appropriation by non-performers. Post-capitalism is Nirmaan ; it is about creating sharing commons. Universities in their radical imagination have been contexts for anti-capitalist critique ; could they also become sites for post-capitalist praxis (see Gibson-Graham 2006 )? Universities in their radical moments have produced critiques of primitive accumulation; could they also become sites for what Tagore called social or rural reconstruction ( not ‘rural development’). Needless to reiterate, it is diffi cult to fi nd a home for transformative praxis in the context of the standard language of the radical/progressive university: critique . It is diffi cult to fi nd a home for, say, praxis in general and post-capitalist praxis in particular in the space of the standard idiom of the university: anti-capitalist critique; as if, the foregrounding of critique, forecloses praxis; the foregrounding of sangharsh , forecloses nirmaan . What then is it to fi nd home for (1) transformative praxis and (2) the ‘slave’s’ knowledge-praxis within the perimeters of the university? One possible way would be to create a ghetto for such knowledge-praxis in one corner of the University, while it is business as usual in the university, while we conduct ourselves like before in the university. These securely secluded places would be given names different from the ones usual discipline-based departments would have; kind of a centre-periphery relation. The other possible way, which is also an impossible way, a very diffi cult way would be to re-envision the way the university conducts itself or has hitherto conducted itself. Can the university move beyond mere critical knowledge production? Can critical knowing get connected to critical questions around doing/ praxis and being/self (the idea of development practice is an attempt to bring questions of knowing, 11 being 12 and doing 13 to critical trialogue). What is it to produce students who are not mere copies of the ‘master’ but copies of the ‘slave’s’ forms of life ; who are respectful of the ‘slave’s’ knowledge and praxis; and who do not share in the ‘master’s’ disdain for praxis? Universities usually produce a theory of practice; universities pass judgments on practice. What is it to produce a praxis of theory, or a praxis emanating from theory; or theory getting borne in/by/through practice? What is it to practice development and not just study and report on processes of development? What is it to make a table, rather than describe a table? What is it to not just report on transformation, but engender transformation? What is it to engage in transformative social praxis in and with the rural, rather than conduct 15040-2010d-1pass-r02.indd 155 7/16/2018 12:48:36 PM