– Sanjay Viswanathan, an alum of University of Strathclyde and Harvard Business School and founder-chairman of the London-based Adi Group and Ed4All

In the 21st century India will overtake the US and China to become the most prosperous nation in the world again. To attain this objective we need a National Doctrine starting with mindset change

In the seventh century CE, Xuanzang (602-664 CE, also known as Hiuen Tsang), a peripatetic Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator, defied his kingdom’s ban on travel abroad and came overland to India. Over 16 years (629-645 CE), his travels in India took him to Kashmir, Mathura, Ayodhya, Prayagraj, Varanasi, and Nalanda among other seats of learning.

At the famous Nalanda Univesrity, he schooled with Buddhist masters including Silabhadra. When he returned to China, he shipped 657 Sanskrit texts centred on Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism on 20 packhorses. To his surprise, Emperor Taizong welcomed him as a national hero and set up a large centre of learning in Xi’an.

Over 2000 years before Xuanzang set foot in India, we had shown the world our academic brilliance through Sushrutha, Kanada, Aryabhatta, Chanakya, Adi Shankara and Madhvacharya, among other eminent scholars. Maharishi Kanada developed the foundations of atomistic approach to physics and philosophy and wrote of anu or atom and its indestructible nature in the Sanskrit text Vaisesika Sutra2200 years before John Dalton propounded atomic theory.

My prediction is that in the 21st century, India will overtake the US and China to become the world’s most prosperous nation again. So, how can we regain our intellectual leadership and vigour and emerge once again as a global pioneer and inventor nation that will drive human civilisation and progress? For this, India needs a National Doctrine comprising elements — Mindset, Structure, Building Blocks, and Values. In this essay, let’s start with Mindset.

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To regain our position of pre-eminence, we need to develop a new national mindset — one that questions and employs analytical rigour, rather than blind acceptance of myths, opinions, and beliefs, and builds on India’s proven academic traditions. We need to transition from the 19th century Macaulayian practice of unquestioningly adopting, borrowing, and following an alien and slavish approach to knowledge gathering and societal management.

Dispensing education rooted in our spiritual traditions while enlarging the mind through innovative ideas and technology will deepen our understanding of our intellectual lineage and broaden our horizons. “Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own
way absorb it, do not become others,” advised Swami Vivekananda. Educators and learners need to embrace the spirit of inquiry, and develop a mindset that searches for answers through relentless research, debate and dialogue, while being open to new thinking. In short, we need a new
and reimagined education system.

To change the national mindset necessitates rewiring the system in two directions simultaneously. First, we must change the way our children are taught in schools. Secondly, it is imperative to infuse skilling into school, college and university curriculums. Our schools need new curricula, content, and certification rubric. For curriculum we must build on our native academic heritage blended with contemporary ideas and technology from the West. In content, India needs hybrid pedagogies that enable learners to learn from anywhere and anytime without the constraints of physical boundaries. Measuring students’ progress should be their choice so we can foster auto-didacts who recognise that success in life comes from knowledge that generates employment.

To improve learning outcomes, the Central, state and local governments must mandate online or digital schooling as complementary to physical in-person learning. This necessitates re-skilling and up-skilling the country’s 10 million teachers to take live classes, coach learners through interactive communication and immersive platforms, and administer proctored assignments and exams digitally. The India Skills Report 2019-20 states that only 46 percent of the country’s graduates are employable. In some states like West Bengal — erstwhile intellectual hub of India – a mere 5 percent of graduates are employable. To make our young population future-ready, India needs to start skilling learners from early age. Generic arts, commerce, economics, and science education must be infused with higher order skills such as data science and Artificial Intelligence, and soft skills like working English and business etiquette, so that future learners become employable.

India has an excellent higher education system in the IISc, IITs and IIMs. But it will become a viswa guru (global teacher) nation only after we elevate our institutions of learning — K-12 schools, vocational centres and universities — into world-class centres of knowledge excellence
such as Takshashila or Nalanda or Pushpagiri that fostered research and innovation rooted in Indian academic traditions. By innovating a National Doctrine of learning, we can regenerate thousands of Sushruthas, Kanadas, Aryabhattas, Chanakyas, Adi Shankaras and Madhvacharyas. As Adi Shankara (788-820 CE), Hinduism’s greatest thinker, philosopher, and teacher said in his work Atmabodha —“the
world is filled with attachments and aversions, and the rest is like a dream. It appears real if one is ignorant, but we become enlightened when we awake.”

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