‘Reading Shakespeare is not political, so why should reading Kalidas be?’
PhD in computer science from Harvard, Rohan Murty, 33, is founder and funder of the Murty Classical Library of India, which publishes English translations of ancient Indian texts. Based between Bengaluru and London, he stood firm and refused to remove San
Sixty-nine years after Independence you would think we’d have the freedom to know about our past without getting dragged into an ideological debate? Right? Wrong. We’ve all had a one-sided, watered down view of history taught to us in school and college. When one begins to explore the truth, perhaps for the sake of one’s own identity or because of a more idealistically-driven pursuit of knowledge, one realises the minefield it has become. Where did we come from, what did we do, who are we? There is an extraordinary intellectual history which we have been deprived of because we haven’t been made familiar with the rich tradition of our texts, our literature, our mathematics, and our philosophy. What is worrying is we have a limited window to access this. This is not a debate about who is better, East or West. Or who is better, a Westerner or an Indian. We have to learn to respect the ‘other’ if we want to be truly educated. Rather, this is about discovering the tremendous depth and diversity in our own intellectual history. That our own history and heritage can offer the world a unique perspective.
Introducing diverse ideas does not have to be a drastic surgery. Reading Shakespeare is not political, so why should reading Kalidas be an issue? I was fortunate to discover our literary heritage by accident as a PhD student when I read Kumarila Bhatta’s Shlokavartika. Such fortuitous accidents do not necessarily happen to everyone. But what I wish to do is to help increase the likelihood of such wonderful accidents happening to everyone. I wish we would all have the freedom to pursue a rediscovery of the great intellectual history of this part of the world, without political or ideological labels. That freedom will perhaps truly liberate us from the vestiges of the past 300 years.
(As told to Kaveree Bamzai)
“WE HAVE TO LEARN TO RESPECT THE ‘OTHER’ IF WE WANT TO BE TRULY EDUCATED”