The country has progressed to create over 350 universities and over 16,000 colleges after the end of its colonial suppression, yet it continues to fail to stem the loss of languages and dialects, said Professor G.N. Devy, eminent literary scholar and a cultural ambassador of India, who was honoured by innumerable national and international awards for his dedicated work for the tribals in the country. “It is a phonocide, with far more damaging effects than genocide”, he said. This loss of language or 'Aphasia' has led to exclusion of the majority of people from higher education and only the 5% are enjoying it today, he added. He was delivering today the first of the IGNOU Silver Jubilee Lecture Series on 'Aphasia, Amnesia and Inequalities : Narratives of Marginalisation', There will be at least one lecture every month in the series slated for the year, at Indira Gandhi National Open University auditorium.
The lecture offered a comment on construction of “knowledge” during the colonial period leading to a loss of correspondence between “production of knowledge” and the cultural context within which the knowledge thus produced came to be situated. Prof Devy was relating to his decades-long experience for developing the tribal cultures and ethnicity to point out how several inappropriate descriptive categories came to be employed for the social narratives. He added that this inappropriate influences are at work to institute new processes of fragmentation in terms of 'tribal' and 'notified' communities. It is an onslaught onto an already fragmented society of the ethnic dialects and liguistic expressions. Delving into the dialectical diversity of the country, its complex “spectrum” and lack of easy access to higher education, he said all are the results of the three colonial legacies, Aphasia, Amnesia and Inequalities. “Loss is not for the minor tongues, some major languages also lost identity, particularly in the younger generation who have lost all connections with the written language of their origin”, he stressed. He defined Amnesia as the loss of the medium from the content of learning.
Referring to Macaulay's 1935 minutes pronounced at the British Parliament in 1832, Prof Devy said the higher education was made accessible to three universities of the country, and not everywhere. That was an effective way to deny access to higher education. The colonial masters were there to decide who should go for the Higher Education and who should not. To stem this attempt was first made at Jadavpur University by setting up a cell for study scopes of Higher Education for majority Indians. The institutes of learning worked to induce cultural amnesia, he said. Touching upon inequalities he said that the issue of inequalities rises from locations of a person. Denial of Higher Education is the real weapon to ensure inequality. Marginalisation far outnumber the dominant members of the dominants, who formed the 5% at best. That dominant status is still continuing in the country. Even as we find Muslims, who according to the 2001 census form 16.4% of the entire population totaling about 17.5 crore do not get enough access to higher education.
The Denotified Adivasis and Nomadic Tribals (DANTs) are also denied access to any of the over 350 universities or 16,000 colleges that the country is boasting of. We only hope this figure grows better towards improvement when the country will have about 1,000 more universities in about ten years time, and IGNOU is a strong step forward to that direction, he said. Prof Devy charted a number of challenges. Opening of more colleges in rural India is a solution to stem the marginalization of disadvantaged. It is a challenge. He mentioned that of over 16,000 colleges in the country only 10 are in rural India. Another challenge is to close the gap of the rural and urban students. “We have to grapple with a multiple layers of denials to tribal people and other disadvantaged groups, and “this is a complex challenge”, he said. Lauding Prof Devy's contribution to help the inclusion of the excluded in Indian society, IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor VN Rajasekharan Pillai said in his presidential address: “Purpose of the universities is to include the excluded. We at IGNOU have started a move towards that direction. We are working to ensure inclusive growth through inclusive education. Deprivation of any kind leads to conflicts and inequalities in that society. We are firm at our conviction to remove that at our level.”
Media Studies (CSDMS), a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in e-Government, ICT for Development and knowledge management issues through capacity building and media initiatives. Elets technomedia is a media and events company mandated to provide effective information on different media and ICT tools and their stake in solving social problems through premiere print publications, online portals and premier events like seminars, conferences and summits. Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka,which is the single apex body involvedin ICT policy and direction for the nation.Wholly owned by the Government ofSri Lanka, ICTA is the implementingorganisation of the e-Sri Lanka Initiative.The vision of ICTA is to harness ICTas a lever for economic and socialadvancement by taking the dividends ofICT to every village, to every citizen, toevery business and to re-engineer theway government thinks and works. The -organisations worked together to enable all the stakeholders to come together for briefing all about the opportunities available presently in field of Information and Communication technology. With five seminal and parallel tracks including eGov, Digital Learning, eHealth, Telecentre Forum and Emerging e- Technologies, the three-day conference cum exhibition was attended by more than 3,000 delegates from 30 countries across globe, including a 300-strong group of IT professionals from he host country, Sri Lanka. The eASiA 2009 exhibition witnessed more than 30,000 footfalls across all the three days. First day of the conference saw a grand inaugural ceremony onsisting of launch by the Honourable President of Sri Lanka, HE Mahinda Rajapaksa. The ceremony was followed by lenary sessions consisting of eminent experts, commenting on importance and advancements of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in fields of Learning, Governance, Health and Telecentre Forum, in addition o Emerging e-Technologies. These people consisted of Suren Amarasekara, CEO Mobitel, Sri Lanka; Jaewon Kim, Deputy General Manager, Samsung Networks Inc.; Ng Fook Seng, SVP Security Business Asia, Gemalto; Par Botes, CTO APAC & Japan, EMC; Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, VP, WiMAX Forum; Dr. Xuan Zengpei, Director ICT & DRR Division UNESCAP; Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, Founder, Chairman & CEO, WSO2 Inc., Founder, Director & Chief Scientist, Lanka Software Foundation; Florencio Cebellos, telecentre.org, International Development Research Centre, Canada; Bash Badawi, Government Industry Technology Strategist, Public Sector, Microsoft APAC; Kevin North, Business Development Executive, IBM Global Technology Services AP Public Sector Business; Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO GeSCI, Ireland; HE Prof. J.B. Dissanayaka, Ambassador for Sri Lanka in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos PDR; and Md. Abdul Karim, Honourable Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Delivering the keynote address at e- ASiA 2009, post grand inauguration, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa averred that Sri Lanka is moving ahead in ICT literacy with national IT literacy crossing the level of 30 % in comparison to 4% in 2004 and assured that the Government was committed to ensure that it goes up to 60% by 2012. Rajapaksa said: ICT is the future driving force of economies. It is the tool and the enabler that will push the boundaries of socio-economic development in countries such as Sri Lanka. It is with this aim thatSri Lanka has given priority to ICT, and mainstreamed ICT in all its development activities. It is in this regard that Sri Lanka firmly pushes ahead with pioneering initiatives such as e-Sri Lanka. He nderlined that these efforts have resulted in numerous achievements and successes in the field of ICT in Sri Lanka, given the fact that country’s percentage ranking in the Network Readiness Index has moved up from 72 to 53 in a span of three years. Voicing his concern over he impact of Internet on young population of the country, he cautioned, “Our children must be protected from the dangers in the cyber space at any cost. Our culture also should not e harmed due to any advances in ICT. I am therefore appealing to all the Asian leaders to take precautions in this regard.” He laid emphasis on the unmistakable need to urgently equip the people, especially the youth, with proficiency in the English language on the one side and to provide them with access to computers and internet facilities, through the rapid development of use of information technology, on the other. He shared with the distinguished delegates that the government has successfully implemented a unique network of ‘Telecentres’ known as the Nenasalas with over 600 centres He reiterated that ICT should be used as “ instruments of ural empowerment; as powerful tools that could make each village in he country a meaningful part of the global village.” He also said that the present Government recognises that “ICT is the only tool that will cross or break geographical barriers, social barriers and reach out to the rural, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.” Dr. MP Narayanan, President, CSDMS thanked the Honourable President, for gracing the occasion with his presence and the eminent dignitaries for their gracious participation; while expressing hope that the three day conference would prove to be enriching and enlightening experience for all participants. He said, “A conference of this nature gives us further opportunities to share our experiences and harmonise our efforts for the future. Such interactions will positively contribute to the progress of the entire Asian region. There has never been this much commitment and focus for ICT led development.” The day one ended with a Gala Night Celebration.
New-age classrooms
