This article is about Liberal Arts and Humanities. You might or might not be too interested to know more. The chances are you’re going to look away now but you’re still reading. Why, thank you! The next few precious minutes of your life will make you contemplate. Either way – you’ll have an opinion, an opinion on higher education in India, the impact of social sciences that isn’t as effective as it should be and maybe even the writer and his views.
My phone rang (as it always does) on an otherwise sticky March morning in 2014. I recall that morning like it was yesterday. The conversation was a thought-provoking one, part interesting and part interrogative, it also allowed me to peer into the future of higher education in India. First steps into a new world. First steps towards helping build an extraordinary Liberal Arts and Humanities School made up of academics from around the world and led by a visionary, Dr. Raj Kumar who is the founding Vice Chancellor of the OP Jindal Global University. Who on our first meeting allowed me the license to do all that was required to spread awareness about Liberal Arts and Humanities, to spread the message of inter-disciplinary learning and the enormous benefits it will bring to how we build our nation today and tomorrow.
The next few weeks of Spring were spent talking to people. Friends, writers, school owners, academics, investors and even fifteen year old family friends who have boundless ambition and want to attend great colleges across the world. There has never been a more significant phase in this nation of ours to provide better quality higher education than it is today. Hundreds and thousands of students are graduating from high schools across India, from Baroda to Bagdogra, Calicut to Coimbatore, and Srinagar to Salem. It’s in our best endeavor to make sure that these bright-eyed students have ALL the options available to them. Engineering, Medicine, Law and Business – the foundations of which have been built for years, whereas setting up a Liberal Arts and Humanities stream at the university level is at its nascent stages. A hugely successful, tried and tested education system in the United States, Liberal Arts has taken its time to make its way to India. And, I strongly believe that the future of higher education must make space for Liberal Arts if we are to produce more entrepreneurs, original thinkers and most importantly…leaders.
Growing up in Calcutta and around an extremely intelligent, motivated and proactive group of people allowed me an insight into the world of Liberal Arts from an early age. Siblings of friends and seniors from school would come back to Calcutta over summer vacations and Christmas breaks with stories of experiential culture and multi-disciplinary learning. As we sat around the Round Chapel steps in La Martiniere on breezy December afternoons with these messengers of the new world, we realized what lay ahead was a journey that in many ways would weave the stories that we oft dreamed of.
An education that allowed one to pursue Economics with Dramatics, or Mathematics with Music! Where was this realm? And, why did it only point in the direction of the west? Why couldn’t I find such interdisciplinary learning with a promise of research and a dash of script writing in India?
And, as more and more of my friends began taking long flights to the United States via Germany (if you fly Lufthansa) and Amsterdam (if you fly KLM), it dawned upon us that we didn’t have such options in India. As we stood in airports bidding farewell to these bright and immensely talented people who had to venture out to study because of the lack of options made me question our education system since I was fifteen.
The last five months have made me realize what it is to develop a new school of thought in an otherwise conventional society, where open houses are held in metros to seek direct communication channels with parents who believe that their children must pursue an education which directly relates to employment and starting salaries. Where engineers aren’t taught to build but to pursue investment banking jobs in high rise buildings! And, as I traveled through the country I came across several people who felt that humanities and the arts were meant only for a few, and that is the biggest challenge that lies ahead of us. We must produce more thinkers, not rote learners. We must allow students the ability to take risks and hone their skills in areas of their interest along with a formalized curriculum that makes one reason and not just mug.
These students who come out of the Liberal Arts education can find employment anywhere (obviously not as doctors or engineers) but across the spectrum. I recall walking into my interview at Merrill Lynch in London in 2007; I was under the impression that most people would have a similar background as mine – in Management and Strategy, in reality it was far from. There were people who studied Theology, History, Philosophy… and it struck me how far from reality we were when we were pushed into Management or Economics with a hope of landing a banking or consulting job. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Good morning India, the future of the country doesn’t only lie in your purchasing power but in the abilities of the youth that come out of YOUR education system. This next phase should look to empower students with options – to allow them to pursue interdisciplinary learning, to be interested in research, to sanction the freedom to debate, argue and build. To give Liberal Arts and Humanities the chance to etch its existence on the map of higher education in India! Educate to Liberate.
(Arjun Puri was born and raised in Kolkata, back when it was still called Calcutta. As a young child he spent time in Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru – before their names changed. His last long-term home was London, and he fully expects it to call itself something else soon. Arjun graduated from the University of St Andrews in 2007 and worked as a banker for 5 years, before he realised it was not for him. Arjun now lives in Delhi and works in the education sector. He loves books, sport, people and travel -- and most of all, Leyla, his German Shepherd.)