Indian Higher Education and the Need for Critical Knowledges

Abstract

The construction of a reflexive modernity calls for people who can look at their own society and correctly identify its greatest challenges. Modernity may be weak and poorly rooted in India but this is precisely why more sensitivity is called for not less. While many of the contradictions created by nineteenth-century industrialisation are surfacing now in India, the risks of late industrial societies are simultaneously making their presence felt. The weakening of social and normative knowledges cannot be said to be a problem restricted to liberal welfare states, it threatens India too. The dangers created by this weakening may take up special forms here, given the small ratio of the educated section in comparison to the rest of Indian society. The demand for critical and human knowledges will never go away. The challenge now is for us to rethink how we can meet that demand.