COWSHEDS IN JOURNALISM UNIVERSITY

New academic innovation: Gaushala on campus

NK SINGH

Madhya Pradesh is blazing new trails in academic innovations. The latest is the plan to open a cowshed in a journalism university. It is a novel concept, the idea of one of the most fertile brains of our times. It’s protagonist, Brij Kishore Kuthiala certainly deserves a Bharat Ratna for that. It perfectly synchronises with his world view of an ideal education system – the Gurukul of Krishna where pupils take cows to graze in surrounding forests, milk the animals, collect firewood, beg for food in villages and then settle down to their studies.

Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism & Communication, established by MP Government, has earmarked one-tenth of the area in its 50-acre new campus at Bhopal for establishing a cowshed. The gaushala, says it’s vice chancellor Brij Kishore Kuthiala, will provide scarce pure and fresh milk and curd to faculty and students. The university will also benefit from cheap fuel by producing biogas from cow dung and manure to grow vegetables on the campus.

The learned VC says our world-renowned centres of learning like Nalanda and Takshashila, in ancient India, were self-sufficient and, of course, they had their owngaushalas. He is, however, not sure if any modern university (except agriculture or veterinary institutes) has this facility. His cow shelter, he iscategorical, will house only Indian-breeds. No foreign breed to pollute our purebreds.

Naturally, he received fulsome praises for the wonderful idea. “It is a novel idea and it is for the first time an education institute is following our traditions,” said State BJP President Nandkumar Singh Chouhan. Many students of his university invaded social media to support their vice chancellor.

Kuthiala is a trail-blazer, known for his awe-inspiring ideas and wonderful research. For instance, under his leadership the university is discovering new facts about Hindu mythology. It is teaching students that Narada, the wandering sage, was world’s first journalist and Lord Hanuman, the God renowned for valour in Hindu mythology, was the first reporter. In fact, the university has deemed it fit to erect a statue of sage Narada in the campus so that future journalists could draw inspiration. The university has also conducted academic research on journalism of Narada Muni.

Makhanlal university seems to have taken inspiration from not only Nalanda and Takshashila, but also Bharat Bharati, a little known residential school near Betul that was established by former RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and former Jana Sangh chief Deendayal Upadhyay in 1959-60. The school, run by RSS front organisation Vidya Bharti, boasts of a full-fledged gaushala.

The university’s only regret could be that it could not consider two other proposals from architects which, if implemented, would have made its campus a tourist spot.Some of the architects who had submitted their proposals for the new campus had done their home work about the university’s ideological leanings quite well. One proposed the new university building in Om shape, to remind the students of holy scriptures. Another architect came out with the brilliant idea of thecampus shaped like lotus, the BJP election symbol. However, both proposals were turned down because they overshot the budget by Rs almost 100 crore.

Contrary to what has appeared in a section of the media, quoting Kuthiala, the proposal to house a cowshed on the campus did not come from architects. Actually, gaushala formed part of university officials’ wish-list given to architects who participated in presentation process for the new campus. “They insisted on a cow shelter on the campus,” said a leading architect of city, who was among those who submitted their proposals for the proposed campus.

Kuthiala has never tried to hide his Sangh connections. Actually, he wears it on his sleeve as a badge of honour, visiting Vishwa Samvad Kendra at Bhopal regularly. He was in the forefront when RSS recently organised a sit in at Bhopal in protest against killings of its workers in Kerala. When BJP organised a meeting of leading citizens at Bhopal last week to meet its president, Amit Shah, he occupied the front benches.

He is an intrepid guy, who goes ahead with his agenda. Recently the university decided to replace studies on ideology of Nehruvian socialism with that of Deendayal Upadhyay’s integral humanism. Earlier, one of the exams conducted by the university had questions like “who was the founder of Jana Sangh”, “who conceptualised integral humanism” and “which political leader was born on December 25”.

Kuthiala is not the only one blazing new trails in academic field in MP. Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi University, also run by MP Government, has been operating a centre which imparts “garbh sanskar” to educate babies in womb and train couples who want to produce super intelligent children. The programme starts with prescribing a perfect date and time, based on planetary configuration, for immaculate conception and once that is achieved, guides the expectant mother to strict regulations on food, clothes, music, reading, movies etc so that they produce a perfect offspring for capable India. A perfect education system!

My column in DB Post of 28th August 2017.

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