Remembering VERSATILE Tapas Majumdar: A Colloquium on Discourses across Boundaries (JNU, 15 October 2012)
When a child
enters a school, the world for it is homogeneous in a sense that is
not compartmentalized in the boundaries of knowledge. School, college
and university education makes us think in the direction of dividing
the attributes of particular event, object or phenomenon in
respective academic or knowledge disciplines. All problems are
necessarily multidisciplinary. We cannot run away from the fact that
all things happening in our lives have been by default been described
by nature through its diverse/multifaceted/versatile characters which
we try to decipher through our limitations-- of knowledge, method of
inquiry and frame of observation.
Aim
of any knowledge system is not only expose/investigate/treat facts
thus to arrive at a qualitative/quantitative interpretation but
also to simulate different versions of truths. This
requires convergence of different frames of inquiry drawn from
different disciplinary boundaries. We know the traditional
Hegelian approach of Synthesis in which there is confluence of
thesis, antithesis leading towards synthesis.
- The thesis is an intellectual proposition.
- The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis, a reaction to the proposition.
- The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.
But
convergence of methodologies or cognitive paradigms which govern the
holistic understanding of the problem is not merely the objective of
interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary education or research.
Objective is to cross boundaries in such a way that there are some
possibilities of amalgamation of not only different set of
perspectives emerging out of different knowledges but also
amalgamation of research
orientations derived from multiple knowledges, methods and ways of
inquiry. Slowly we realize that
disciplinary boundaries disappear with the ongoing quest of
knowledge.
In
Indian context, university model developed and build over the years
is largely oriented towards training and nurturing human capital
through different disciplines of humanities, social sciences,
engineering, medicine, sciences, mathematics, traditional knowledge
etc. It would not be a ambitious overstatement to say that our
education system to a large extent and research system to a lesser
extent has not evolved keeping in mind; addressing the problems.
Considering schools,
colleges and universities are being one of the most democratic
institutions in modern India, this issue needs to be addressed with
more urgency and rigor.
Great
discoveries are inspired by junctions of openness. Ideas come through
open interaction, debate and introspection. The formal system of
education is not structured to achieve this. Even the so called
‘interdisciplinary approaches’ also
rely on merely combining and organizing different disciplinary
perspectives for the sake of lip service. Having
understood that for serious research efforts, one needs to be
firmly grounded in some discipline/discipline, merely this
groundedness sometimes comes in the way of honestly committing
towards leaving the boundaries of one's fortress of knowledge and
move towards learning new tools/methods/techniques from other field
of inquiry.
Interdisciplinary
or multidisciplinary approach comes through emphasis on reason.
Whenever there is vacuum in society in a sense that faculties
of reason are demolished then one faces with problems of
fundamentalism, ignorance, obscurantism and faith which compel
elements of our society to fight with each other without appreciating
the bigger problems of the day like development, education, health,
nutrition, employment, livelihood, communal harmony, regional
disparity etc.
Essence
of scientific imagination is to transcend the limit of boundaries.
Disappearing of boundaries of inquiry should happen with some human
concern. The problem oriented approach comes handy when
thinking about the ways to do this. Human mind is evolved to think
both implicitly and explicitly. We think in terms of social,
psychological, biological conceptions of life. Thus capacity of human
mind is certainly enhanced by other faculties of science, technology,
new kind of communication tools developed, new depths acquired in
different field of knowledge. Primarily language is our prime asset
to understand and exchange all the knowledge. But it is the cognitive
faculties of our mind that determines the possibilities of greater
in-depth participation in informal/natural/symbiotic/organic
interdisciplinary thinking.
Let
us summarize why interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research is of
paramount importance and how it can change following situations.
a)
Already well established dominance of formalism and positivist
approaches in research needs to be altered/reshaped to imbibe
convergence of different ways of inquiry shaped by qualitative
investigation.
b)
Poor state of primary, secondary and tertiary education
c)
Mood of the times: Local, isolated and dispersed reasons for having
interdisciplinarity
d)
Higher education basically driven by single discipline driven agenda
In
short, disciplinary boundaries need not limit our thinking. We have
to appreciate inevitability of otherness. Mind is both enabler
and enabling. If we deploy our mind in the direction of problem
solving, then it always engages itself into free, random thinking
about ways to solve the problems without carrying the baggage of from
where the information, knowledge is coming from. It only searches for
tools to solve the problems. Tools available in our life are products
of cumulative application of different set of incrementally
accumulated skill sets of knowledges. India is a rich legacy and
history which talks about interdisciplinary inquiry. People like
Surjo Kumar Chakravarty, Ravindranath Tagore, Vinay Sarkar, P.C. Ray,
D.P.Mukherjee have shown us the way in this direction.
Thus,
principle challenge in front of us is to move from being A Researcher
to that of A Proactive investigator of Human Concern. We have to move
from Research Question to Problem Projection and continue this
vice-versa journey untill the problems gets sufficient treatment.
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