Mani Shankar Aiyar: Prakash Javadekar is more dangerous than Smriti Irani

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Mani Shankar Aiyar: Prakash Javadekar is more dangerous than Smriti Irani

by Guest Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:16 am

Her successor, Prakash Javadekar, is everything she was not. Where she was aggressive, Javadekar is accommodating. Where she hit out, he is modest and retiring. Where she offended, he is charming and personable. Where she wore her illiteracy as a badge of honour, Javadekar is learned and profound. Which is what makes him much more dangerous. Because, as was revealed to me in a series of private conversations I had with him some years ago when he came across to discuss my views on Hindutva, he is steeped in that dangerous philosophy. With great ability and dexterity, he is much more likely to steer the saffronisation of our education than poor Smriti ever got around to doing...

Where Irani, aided and abetted by her MoS, Katheria, sought to slam down with a sledge-hammer that combination of "brutalized mass consciousness" and "a dogmatic view of history and culture", Javadekar is much more likely to accomplish his fell purpose with a stiletto. So, watch out. The devil with a smile is more a threat than a star strutting the stage.

Smriti Irani was so obvious. She began by bringing in a fantasist, not a historian, as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. His main contribution was the totally unoriginal suggestion that "Sanskrit sources" should be the source of all ancient history (as if Romila Thapar and other established historians, towards whom he had a "deep-seated hostility", were not well-versed in Sanskrit sources, besides sources in the various other languages of ancient India and more modern commentaries); that "Greater India", stretching from South East Asia to Afghanistan and Iraq, should be the focus of academic study; and the ideological dictum that "Muslims are the only ones to have maintained a distinct culture". (The quotes are from an interview that Gopinath Ravindran gave to Atul Dev after he resigned in disgust from the post of member-secretary of ICHR).

Javadekar will not be so obvious. He will, of course, bring in RSS types, but only after checking whether they have a fig-leaf of academic acceptability. Of course, it is another question whether he will be able to overcome the obvious contradiction between RSS loyalties and scholarly respectability...

Please fasten your seat belts for more of the same, but appointments being made with a bewitching smile, not the flame-throwing of his predecessor.

http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/in-saffronizing-education-javadekar-will-beat-smriti-hands-down-1429952?pfrom=home-lateststories

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Mani Shankar Aiyar: Prakash Javadekar is more dangerous than Smriti Irani

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Prakash Javadekar is more dangerous than Smriti Irani