[FRIAM] India

[Sarbajit Roy]

Hi Glen

In so far as the report of dropping the periodic table and evolution from
the Class 10 syllabus, it is essentially a question of Hindu class and
caste dynamics operating in India.

Traditionally, education / knowledge in India was the domain of the Higher
castes like Brahmins (Pundits), the next caste beneath them (Kshatriyas)
were warriors so didn't need much bookish knowledge as they also had
Brahmins to advise them, the 3rd highest caste (Kayasthas) were scribes and
scriveners so allowed to read books but not to apply them .. and so on. All
the  castes beneath them were prohibited from reading books or acquiring
Brahmanical knowledge - on pain of death.

Over the centuries by marrying endogamously the genetics of the various
castes evolved to amplify the physical characteristics required for each
castes' profession. The Muslim and then the British rulers of India were
more than happy to allow this state of affairs to continue while they ruled
as it kept the Hindus divided and segregated.

However, after India became independent in 1947, with the spread of
universal education the Brahmins were subjected to intense reverse
discrimination and negative reservations intended to curtail their
education domination. With the infiltration of the lower castes throughout
the education system the education standards of India have been pulled down
to the lowest common denominator. To take a simple example which I cited
earlier, a Brahmin student needs to score a 99+% percentile to get into a
top engineering or medical college (scoring 250 marks out of 300 in a
negatively marked exam) whereas a low caste (barely literate) student gets
in even with a score of negative 50 out of 300, with over 40% of the
students unable to score +ve marks.

The reasons these chapters are being removed has nothing to do with
religion or creationism, and everything to do with the poor state of the
Indian education system where the bottom students can't cope. The low caste
Prime Minister of India (who has only passed Grade 4) claims to have
acquired graduate as well as post-graduate degrees from top universities
(which seem completely fake), Universities which he publicly admits he
never set foot in, especially seems determined to pull everyone in India
down to his semi-literate level.

Sarbajit


On Thu, Jun 1, 2023 at 9:29 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't follow Indian politics. But these seem scary:
>
> Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia
>
> https://freethinker.co.uk/2022/04/religion-and-the-decline-of-freethought-in-south-asia/
>
> India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01770-y
>
> Again, going back to Sweet Tooth, the tension between having to sacrifice
> hybrids to get the 'secret sauce' for the anti-viral (or the cure) against
> a vegetarian ideology is interesting, flies in the face of naïve
> utilitarianism.
>
> --
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>
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