First Report on Claude Alvares lecture at IIT-M

Earlier I had forwarded an invitation for the lecture of Dr. Claude Alvares with this group. It was good to see a full room for the meeting and the lecture was well received looking at the student response after the lecture was over. The response was even better from the young professors. Here is an initial report / summary thanks to Mrs. Chitra Nagesh.

Report on Dr. Claude Alvares’ lecture on Multiversity
given at the Humanities Department, IIT-M on the 18th March 2008

From the minute, he walked in; Dr. Claude had set the mood for his talk – informal and refreshing but never missing a chance to add a sharp and earthy remark at times. He kept a hot afternoon session lively. (No mean feat, certainly!) .

He reminisced about his earlier visit to the city and mentioned about his work on Shri. C. V. Seshadri. He expressed his admiration and respect for the scholar’s work at the grassroot among the local people.

Dr. Claude shared his experiences of his work in the various committees in a light hearted vein, but the underlying concern for the absence of honesty and integrity in today’s business ventures was obvious. In a way, it hinted what direction his lecture would take- call to the youth to move away from the earlier generation’s views, leanings and approaches.

The tribulations of his sons in an effort to be ‘educated’ were brought out with a good dose of humour but a subtle attack was directed towards the teachers and professors.

However, it is what he did to ensure burden free and voluntary learning for his children that is behind the emerging of Multiversity. How his sons went on to seek knowledge that they desired and turned out to be successful in the material sense and otherwise is another story altogether.

The arguments that he put forth for decolonising education may not be new to some of the persons in the audience. Then it is his depth of conviction and sense of commitment that breathed fire into those ideas. When he questioned the audience how a 300 year old society can teach sociology, philosophy or political science to a 5000year old civilisation or how a problem in our local community can have a ready American solution without mincing words and with passion, the impact must have been felt at an individual level.

He felt that the present curricula bring out a soul destroying course. It saddens him that academicians and educators have not paid attention to the tremendous potential in terms of our knowledge systems be it political science, philosophy or even psychology. According to Dr. Claude, students are treated like buckets to be filled and the present learning courses do not allow learning in the real sense of the word but just encourage cramming of mere information.

When serious questions were posed to him during the interactive session particularly by some students, one can hope at least for an independent thought process which eventually will lead to changes( positive ones, of course).