Linguist and literary theorist Prof. G.N. Devy said on Thursday that India has as many systems of knowledge as there are communities and languages in the country.
He spoke after inaugurating a three-day convention on Knowledge in Society organised by Kuvempu University and the Journal of Dialogues on Knowledge of Society at the university campus in Shankarghatta, Bhadravathi taluk.
The data collected from the research show that there are over 4,000 communities in the country. As per the census data, there are 1,369 verified mother tongues and over 19,000 unverified mother tongues.
Memory traditions
“The collected memory of communities forms knowledge. There are diverse memory traditions in the country. There are traditions where memory is in written text but rendition is in oral. In some systems, the tradition is taught actively, while, in others, the generations pick up traditions tacitly or passively. In several traditions, the memory is limited to certain groups, and in a few traditions, the leads were drawn from nature or ecology,” he said.
However, in recent years, with the advent of technology and the production of artificial memory, human society, culture, and natural memory have been affected badly. “I don’t remember anybody’s contact number; instead, my phone does it for me. . Human memory is declining steadily and very rapidly, making knowledge as human property impossible. Our brains are losing functions like imagination,” he said.
Cosmocracy
Explaining the impacts of technology, he said that kids hardly talk to their parents, and human beings seldom speak to their companions. “Reckless individualism and endless consumerism have done away with the notion of a meaningful individual in a family or a society,” he said.
Further, he stated that the present generation of human beings was in times of unprecedented inequality. “The survival of knowledge at the time of the sharp economic divide was impossible. And democracies have collapsed across the world. Though we pretend to be living in a democracy, we should accept that democracy is a thing of the past,” said the literary theorist.
Some Australian philosophers have proposed cosmocracy, where the government takes into account all species, not human beings alone. “It is a new political idea. We need to be more sensitive to differences and diversities. For that, we need to learn from the folks and communities the politics of diversity,” he said.
European rationality
Sunil Sahasrabudhey, founder president of Vidya Ashram at Varanasi, in his preliminary remarks, defined ‘knowledge in society’ as ‘lokastha vidya.’
“Vidya exists among the people and in this world. It is not people’s knowledge. It is there in society, one that is intertwined with the dynamics of society. It cannot be stored in a computer nor confined to any particular caste. It can be held by a university or any institution or a monastery. It is knowledge in society,” he said.
Further, elaborating on the idea of knowledge in society, Mr. Sahasrabudhey said that it would include the knowledge of people like peasants, artisans, and women. “A union of knowledge with these people becomes knowledge in society. It liberates us from the narrow confines of European rationality,” he said.
He proposed that the idea of ‘Knowledge in Society’ did not prioritise ethics, aesthetics, or material conceptions. “They all come together. When you talk about Knowledge in Society, you don’t make undesirable distinctions between different people in society. And this liberates you very strongly from the narrow confines of European rationality. It liberates you from the thoughts of Descartes (René Descartes) and Kant (Immanuel Kant),” said Mr. Sahasrabudhey.
Prof. Sharath Ananthamurthy, Vice-Chancellor of Kuvempu University, A.L. Manjunath, registrar, and others were present. Experts, scholars, and intellectuals from different study centres and universities participated in the convention.
Published - February 20, 2025 06:50 pm IST
