University and college students may soon be “encouraged” to study plastic surgery as described in the ancient Sanskrit text Sushruta-Samhita and Vedic astronomy. Students of Modern Medicine will also be nudged to at least take up credit courses on the “Indian Systems of Medicine”, including Ayurveda and Siddha. These proposals are part of the University Grants Commission (UGC)’s draft ‘Guidelines for Incorporating Indian Knowledge in Higher Education Curricula’, which aims to help colleges and universities develop courses for introducing students to the Indian Knowledge System (IKS). “Besides a more comprehensive view of our country as a knowledge-based society, studying and knowing about IKS will give our students an understanding of how it can be connected with contemporary knowledge to find new perspectives on building sustainable human communities,” said UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar. As a concept, IKS was introduced through the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The draft guidelines define IKS as “systematized disciplines of knowledge developed to a high degree of sophistication in India from ancient times and all of the traditions and practises that the various communities of India — including tribal communities — have evolved, refined and preserved over generations”. The draft guidelines have proposed that every student enrolled in a UG or PG programme “should be encouraged to take credit courses in IKS amounting to at least five per cent” of the total mandated credits, which a student is expected to earn to obtain a degree. And at least 50% of the credits apportioned to IKS should be related to a major discipline and accounted for the credits assigned to that major discipline. Simply put, a student pursuing BSc with a major in Mathematics will be expected to pick IKS courses on maths, such as “numbers, fractions and geometry in the Vedas”. Likewise, an MA History student will have to pick IKS courses related to this field. For students of modern medicine, the UGC has proposed a credit course in the first year on "Indian Systems of Medicine" and a two-semester credit course on the "theory and practice" of Ayurveda, Siddha, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani or Homeopathy. The draft has been made public to receive feedback till April 30. The UGC has also sent the guidelines to universities and colleges for suggestions. Some of the other courses suggested in the draft guidelines include “splendid geographical isolation of India and the uniqueness of Indian culture”; “Ramayana and Mahabharata, and their important regional versions”; “Puranas”; foundational texts of Indian Philosophies, “including the Jaina and Bauddha”, and “foundational texts of Indian religious sampradayas, from the Vedic period to the Bhakti traditions of different regions”. On Indian astronomy, among the suggested courses are “ancient records of the observation of the motion of celestial bodies in the Vedic corpus; astronomy as the science of determination of time, place and direction by observing the motion of the celestial bodies”. The notion of “Bharartavarsha as a Chakravarti-Kshetra and important attributes of Chakravartin (concept of universal ruler which finds mention in Hindu, Buddhist traditions)” is mentioned among the potential courses in the Indian polity and economy segment of the draft.
