Prof. Yashpal, eminent scientist, thinker and Ex-chairman of University Grants Commission is a household name. Recipient of many prestigious awards, he has anchored many science-based programmes like 'Turning Point' on the Television for years and at present, he is the Chancellor of Jawaharlal University, New Delhi. 

Recently, he was at the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi to deliver 'The Daulat Singh Kothari Memorial Award Lecture' on Urgent Need for Renovation of Education in India and the World. 

In his lecture, he stressed the need for nurturing adversity into an advantage. He also feels that Learning is not delivered, it is created, and it is constructed. 

About Internet as the medium of education, he cautions that everything on Internet is not right. He feels that we have to use Internet in dimensionality of the education. Otherwise one would be only on the surface. 

In this interview given to Chetan Upadhyaya of Satya Foundation (A social-cultural-spiritual organisation), Prof. Yashpal rises above the profession of science to talk about profession of  'life'. He talks of permeable membranes rather than walls – the scientific mantra that is also humane! He talks of rising above every boundary and realize the global consciousness that pervades the universe.  Excerpts from the Interview:  

What are your views about the education and your vision about the desired changes?

Ans: Education should be based on the real life experience, observation & happenings. I think load of information is to be reduced; comprehension and understanding to be emphasized most, to share the joy of understanding. 

The real pleasure to teacher comes when students are not constrained to the syllabus. Even I may be blind to facts. In fact, every human is born to study and observe.  I feel that students are more current than teachers. 

The other thing that is very important is the contextual relevance. 

And if a teacher does not know the answer, in spite of saying 'total no', one should say, "aisa lagta hai" (It seems that). A certain way of thinking has to be communicated. We must encourage children to develop questions. Real learning comes from urge to find out. 

Nextly, no two people can experiment in the same way. If experimentation is different, then syllabus for different students should be different too.  We insist on centralized examination system, which is not fair. 

Last but not the least, I feel that Coaching classes destroy the personality of the children. We would not make students race for that extra mark of distinction. 

Your idea of University?

Ans: You may not know everything, but you actually share. That is the idea of university. 

You said in your lecture that addressing the problem of terrorism is not only the work of politicians and the religious leaders. You also said that interfaith conferences just brainwash the persons for a while but the actual problem remains the same. So how should the society deal with the actual problem and what changes should be brought about in the system? 

Academically, we are not witnessing the kind of work, which should be there.  

As far as our origin is concerned, we are born out of intimacy. Out of intimacies come the art, the culture, the music and so many beautiful things. But if you see carefully, on one hand, there is creation of so many beautiful things; on the other there is a natural urge to safeguard. People and communities, in order to protect their identities build their armies in the name of religion and tradition. That is why we have seen so many dictators like Hitler and the 'super patriots'.

We have used science to push on with our old agendas. We have used Science to equip our soldiers with arms and ammunitions. And that is why we are in deep trouble with more and more fights and wars. So this is really a paradox that on one hand, human mind creates beautiful painting, music and poetry & on the other hand the same human mind involves itself in so much of violence and bloodshed.

Amidst all this chaos and confusion, there is a realization of a global consciousness, which basically comes from exploration, scientific exploration. The same scientific laws govern every thing in this cosmos, the sun, the earth the moon, the houses, the things in the houses. So there is a certain consciousness in the whole cosmos but only if you allow it to grow. This consciousness is not community dependent. It is really global. That consciousness has not soaked into the society and that consciousness is intellectual because it comes from our genes, it is natural feeling, it is very pretty. But this intellectual thing that is as valuable does not seem to influence us and we do not know how to handle it and we have not been able to do that.

That is a major agenda before thinkers and researchers how to handle it. It keeps on occurring to me that some architects of society will probably realize this and I consider Gandhi as a social architect. This global consciousness did not come to him from scientific exploration, it came to him as an intellectual thing.

If I remember correctly, in your lecture you said that you don't consider Gandhi as a spiritual leader?

Ans: Yes. Gandhi was a tremendous social architect who helped India. Even about his idea of Gram Swaraj, earlier I thought this was impractical, impossible. How can you be in a tiny place and independent and how can you run things? But I have been feeling that we haven't really thought of new developments in science and our capabilities in a different way. It really means Global Consciousness. Global consciousness should become different from globalization. It means each space has a right to be considered the center; so long it gives the same right to everybody else. This is the new way of thinking. 

You can't say that I am standing on top and I am standing on a round globe. But you must remember that everybody is standing on the top even if his feet are towards you. 

Can you please elaborate the concept of global consciousness? And will a single global government help the cause?

Ans: Global consciousness means you should be able to recognize that there will be tremendous diversity. Global consciousness is the template on which there are beautiful flowers growing at different places, but they are not isolated any more. They can be in contact. It can be a beautiful tapestry rather than a single government. If you had a single government that is totalitarianism. 

That is the problem I have with scientists and the technologists that they serve only as agents of the current thinking and they really don't think and don't really work along with social sciences and other disciplines to create a new type of world in which decentralization is considered to be a valuable and a productive thing, in which beautiful specificities which are created in human society i.e. different ways of living, are preserved.

It is possible now you can stay in touch and create a globalization, which is a decentralized globalization. On this, there has not been enough academic and detailed or economic thought being given. My urge is that this is probably the greatest academic enterprise, which all the universities of academics should engage in, rather than just talking and trying to brainwash each other. They must engage in deep and actual understanding and how to 'make' understanding. And understanding does not have a label; it does not have a brand name, as the religions have. As soon as a religion becomes a creed, it becomes a mandate. There may be many beautiful things in it, but then it automatically leads to animosities towards each other and we have to go away from that. Not to throw that (religion) away but consider it a long beautiful episode in the growth of humanity. But now that we begin to understand and don't consider this eventually as a way of getting more capability to further the same aberrations which come, we have to actually develop a new way of thinking. 

Can a time come when genetics plays a role in stopping terrorism or eradicating negative feelings?

Ans: No. No, that is trivial. Please do not bring genetics in it. Do not use frames .We must try to develop understanding. Do not tamper with it (nature) too much. It will happen automatically. After all, we do know there are some people who are doing this. They are not the ones for whom science and technology means always saying 'We are the first and we are going to rule the world'. That is not the global consciousness, of course.  Global consciousness arises through understanding and not through religion or revolution.

Do you think this state of global consciousness can be achieved by techniques like music, meditation and yoga propounded by our Rishis and Yogis?

Ans: See, I admire Rishis as wise men who can draw rather useful conclusions based on insufficient data. But our aim now is establishing a universality, which can not be disputed by any religion. Nobody can say DNA is not DNA, nobody can say my DNA is same as yours more or less with slight alterations. I can prove scientifically that there is only one single life on this planet, Humans and non-humans but this is scientific, nobody can dispute it. Nobody can say it (life) is Hindu or Muslim or Jain or Christian or whatever.

This kind of appreciation is left in very few people.  Luckily there are still some people who are not engaged in demolishing the old things. Old things are our heritage. Don't put all the wisdom and technology and aeroplanes and bombs and everything into the old technology as the heritage. That is not fair. That's non-sense.  Mythology is imagination and from that point of view it is beautiful but it is not reality. This difference we should learn to make. When we make, we now extract this social way of thinking from present understanding and see how we can create a new architecture for human living. 

Last question, how can we take the excitement of science to the class room?

Ans: Teachers must listen to the voice of children. Address their curiosity. And think and talk about it. No fixed formulae can be given. Formulae will only brainwash them. That will be again a wrong type of globalization.

Chetan Upadhyaya is a journalist and holistic healer who contributes extensively to various newspapers/magazines. He also conducts programmes and workshops for Stress Management and total awakening of mind through music, meditation, yoga and natural lifestyle under the guidance of his Guru, Yogi Shri Ashish Chatterjee. He can be reached at:satyafoundation@sify.com