Democracy, Plurality and Indian University

The politics of knowledge and the discourse of culture as politics today is enclosed in a hypertextual circle that lacks the suppleness of the embedded quarrels of the university of the 1960s. This prompts the location of debates on diversity, plurality and the university in a longer 'duree' ranging across the colonial and post-colonial era and framing a wide range of issues. This paper first deals with the concept of the university and its relationship to the liberal imagination and then explores the nationalist debate on how the modern university was conceived. A third section deals with the issue of language and educational policy focusing on the battles triggered by the Mandal Report. The concluding section examines the immediate question of nuclearisation of India and Pakistan and the possible role of the university in this context, outlining a critical role for it.