The "Inclusive" Revolution

The "Inclusive" Revolution

The term "inclusive" has now acquired wide currency in our country. It is used to refer to the need for the incorporation of many backward ethnic groups into the mainstream of the country. But, I have used it in this article to refer to the need for something other than "the inclusion of backward ethnic groups". More specifically, my indirect reference is to the need for the incorporation of many other revolutions in addition to the two revolutions-a political revolution and an economic revolution- into the purview of our leaders' understanding of a set of revolutions that is a sine qua non for turning the old Nepal into a New Nepal. Though the need of our time is to struggle relentlessly to bring about a set of revolutions in many other realms besides the politics and the economics, the set of revolutions that our leaders talk about consists of the two above-mentioned revolutions only. Therefore, the kind of the revolution they advocate is not inclusive. Nowadays, most of us frequently say that Nepali society should be inclusive; there should be inclusive democracy. There is nothing to be worried about it. However, confining ourselves to the inclusive democracy by turning a blind eye to the need for what I call "inclusive" revolution is definitely something to be worried about. Establishing a New Nepal is impossible if we gloss over the inclusive revolution. It is therefore important that we advocate both the inclusive democracy and the inclusive revolution.

A need arises for a revolution in a certain area of a society when people do not benefit from the system under which it functions in many important ways. The system under which the political realm of Nepali society worked before Nepal was declared as a "Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal" was abhorred by a vast majority of people because it did not benefit them in many important ways for many reasons-both known and yet to be known. The "demonstrated" (probably not necessarily inevitable) lack of the link of this system with their overall welfare accounts for their active participation in the April 2006 People's Uprising that culminated in the end of the kingdom that had been in existence for about 250 years in different forms. In our country, there are still many other areas beyond the two realms- politics and economics- that a majority of people are not benefiting from. It is obvious from this that there is a need for many revolutions in many areas of our society. Materializing our common goal of establishing a New Nepal requires our leaders to broaden the parochial purview of their understanding of the complete set of revolutions needed at the present stage of the history of our country.

Given the critical situation that our country now finds itself in, a detailed delineation of a complete set of revolutions in all of the important areas of Nepali society(e.g. education, health, communication, bureaucracy etc) that are a sine qua non for transforming the present Nepal into a New Nepal is a very important responsibility of intellectuals in our country. I think it is time for "real" intellectuals specialized in their respective fields of learning to analyze the various "ailing" areas of our society in order to conceptualize what I call "a complete set of revolutions" required to ensure the transformation of Nepal into a variously prosperous country. The present critical situation of Nepal is an opportunity to test themselves practically as a genuine intellectual. To them, this opportunity is very important because there are some people who doubt their identity as a real scholar. The government is responsible for creating a condition in which real scholars collaborate on the conceptualization of the complete set of revolutions in question.

In this article, I will endeavour to set forth a general outline of the revolution needed in one of the areas of the broad field of education-higher education. Higher education is one of the "ailing" areas that need to be rationalized in many important ways. One of the problems facing the sector of higher education in Nepal is the tendency for the intellectuals themselves- who are very important aspects of higher education-to act irresponsibly for their personal aggrandizement. I prefer to call it "intellectual corruption". More specifically, I define intellectual corruption as a set of irresponsible behaviours shown by intellectuals as well as those who wield the official power to influence the educational sector, which make it impossible for what may be called "intellectual progress" to take place. For an analytical purpose, I define "intellectual progress" as a condition in which the intellectual community goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge already produced to produce new knowledge that would be a contribution to the existing cumulative whole of knowledge.

Some of the aspects of the intellectual corruption appertain to the way university teachers are appointed, the way they teach, and the way carry out their duty other than teaching.

Let me first discuss the intellectual corruption related to the way universities teachers are appointed. If we are to think without going beyond the fact that university teachers in Nepal are appointed through a competition, we may think that there is nothing wrong with the process involved in their appointment. To understand that there is something wrong with that process, we must go beyond this rather misleading fact, and take into account the question of what lies behind this competition. The kind of competition through which they are appointed is not the competition proper. This may perhaps be rightly described as "the so-called competition" because it is not intended to select the best of all the applicants aspiring to an academic career; it is no more than a seemingly appropriate tool to make an explicitly inappropriate decision to bring arbitrarily into the faculty those who use special influence to get employed as a university teacher without taking into account a set of comprehensive scientific criteria for assessing the suitability of an individual as an ideal university teacher. Nepotism, favouritism, and cronyism are the characteristic but hidden features of its selection process.

The other aspect of intellectual corruption relates to the way university teachers carry out their responsibility as a university teacher. A university teacher has a responsibility not only to teach knowledge already produced but also to produce new knowledge. Those university teachers who are not capable of producing new knowledge have no a moral right to occupy the intellectually most challenging position of a university teacher. Most university teachers in Nepal have not proved to the intellectually conscious people that they have contributed to the knowledge base of the academic discipline they belong to. Generally, it is true to say that they do not get involved in the process involved in the production of genuine future scholars. They neither think themselves nor cause the students to think. Here I have not used the term "think" in its widest sense in which everyone thinks. I have used it in the strictest sense in which logicians use it. According to them, thinking consists in pondering over a given set of facts so as to elicit their connexions.


Even when we judge them against another criterion, i.e. quality of teaching, most of them are blameworthy. Most of them do no more than teach a very insignificant portion of the course they are required to teach. By the "inadequate teaching", I mean the kind of teaching in which they teach less than is practically possible within the period of time fixed in the course of study.

They explain their inadequate teaching by saying that it is the responsibility of an ideal student to learn independently what is left after they finish teaching. Their argument for the inadequacy in their teaching is built on a logic ostensibly created, which implicitly implies that it is not necessary for them to teach in a way that is "practically adequate". "The deliberate inadequacy" in their teaching essentially results from two things-the arbitrary selection of university teachers that results in many disqualified people being employed as a university teacher and perception of a teaching profession as something like business guided by profit. The unfair selection of university teachers makes it impossible for most highly intellectually qualified people to pursue an academic career. It is not the disqualified teachers employed through arbitrary selection but the highly qualified teachers abstracted from a large pool of prospective university teachers who are capable of teaching the course in a way that is as complete as practically possible. The perception of a teaching profession as something like business guided by profit makes most of the university teachers only pay heed to what they can get in return in economic terms from their teaching, as opposed to what the students can get in intellectual terms from their teaching. Given the paltry amount of time they spend on their teaching profession, we feel as if they were a full-time employer in another place and a part-time employer at a university.


The above account gives an incomprehensive and broad panorama of the intellectual corruption that exists in the sector of higher education in Nepal. That my only intention here is to stir up an academic debate on what I call "the inclusive revolution" and its specifics accounts for the incomprehensive and broad nature of this article. There is a strong need for the end of the intellectual corruption, which is necessary but not sufficient condition for bringing about a revolution in the field of higher education. Making the higher education free from the intellectual corruption is a very important part of the broad attempt to bring about the broad educational revolution needed to ensure the educational progress, which is the engine of social progress because it is the head of the whole educational sector, so to speak.