Eminent historian Romila Thapar has strongly criticised the University Grants Commission (UGC)’s Learning Outcomes-based Curriculum Framework (LOCF), warning that it represents an intrusion into university autonomy and a dilution of academic quality.
She also cautioned that the proposed framework, in its current form, could risk reducing higher education into rote learning with students confined to question-and-answer formats, instead of being encouraged to raise critical questions.
Prof. Thapar’s critique is part of Kerala’s formal response to the Union Education Minister and the UGC. She was special invitee in the Prabhat Patnaik-chaired expert committee formed by the Kerala State Higher Education Council to study the draft document.
Draft UGC curriculum puts focus on ‘ancient wisdom’
The noted academic emphasised the need to entrust universities with the decision on what is to be taught and researched. “The syllabus and what is to be taught and how in each discipline is the concern of the individual university and is not to be dictated to by the government. These are concerns in which a specialised and advanced knowledge is required; something that obviously administrators and politicians do not have,” she stated, adding that non-specialists lack the advanced and up-to-date knowledge that is required to design effective curricula.
Referring to the UGC’s treatment of the concept of modernity, Prof. Thapar suggested a more nuanced approach by dividing it into two phases. The first phase must ideally involve the intellectual history of Europe from the 17th century onwards in debates on rational thoughts by philosophers, while the second phase is further advanced by both the Industrial Revolution and colonialism. Both, she noted, have deep implications for the economy, social change, and India’s colonial experience, and need to be critically studied.
The historian also raises objections to the perceived lack of clarity and academic rigour surrounding ‘Indian Knowledge System’ in the UGC draft document. She argues that there has been no proper definition or analytical framework to explain what constitutes the concept.
Prof. Thapar’s criticism centres on the prevalent use of texts such as Kautilya’s Arthashastra, often quoted as a representative work of ancient Indian thought. However, she points out the uncritical way in which such texts are applied across vast chronological spans, from 500 BCE to 1000 CE, without considering the changing social, political and intellectual contexts that shaped them.
The Indian Knowledge System, she opined, cannot be treated as solely a Hindu contribution. “Even if some of the texts were composed in Sanskrit, there was, during the first and early second millennia AD, a considerable exchange of ideas on proto-science across India, west Asia, central Asia and China. These ideas cannot be given a geographical boundary or a religious origin,” she asserted.
Published – September 24, 2025 02:12 pm IST
