Scholar

‘Scholars and artists should not be afraid of offending political patrons’-wow great sermon, but I thought it implied not their ideological patrons, other pay masters and those that patronize them otherwise.

Then can the less scholarly be afraid or allowed to be frightened.

I have always noticed that when humanity uses a very incisive and intelligent filter or sieve it can easily identify how certain self styled individuals who are good at only verbally articulating certain things academically without any involvement or integrity, have in order to promote themselves, and the ideologies that they perpetuate, have scrupulously blurred the differences between knowledge, understanding, facts, truths, imagination, interpretations, why even lies and have always attempted to bury all under one carpet and mask everything with their egoistic appropriation which can span the entire width of all these by assigning one label ,which may sound dignified and that word is ‘ scholar’

Appropriations of certain terms normally associated with great respect and reverence by minions sully the terms so much that in due course the very mention of the term is associated with untruth and so it is counter- productive.

It may bring instant popularity to some in certain small circles or may get cheap publicity, popularity and pelf too.

But can presumption, self proclaiming because sponsored by some dispensation in power, or getting promoted by ideologically aligned academic institutes, biased publications justify such appropriation of big labels.

Of late, there is a mush room of such intentional controversy generators; promoters of selective divisive agenda; presenters of unverified and unauthenticated information; victim hood peddlers; history distorters, misinterpreters of certain texts, twisters of certain facts and issues and so on.

We address the greatest minds like Newton, Einstein as scientists; Picasso as a great artist and painter; Shakespeare as a great writer; Will Durant as a very great historian; Beethovan as a great composer; Leonardo Da vinci as a versatile genius; Pele as a great football player; Martin Luther King as a great civil right leader; Mahathma Gandhi as a great leader; J.Krsihnamurthy as a great philosopher and so on. The list can be unending all omission are for want of space.

None of them though fall into all parameters of definition of the word ‘scholar’ based on their long association in the field as well as their extraordinary, intelligent, immense, impactful and useful contribution in respective fields.

The hall mark of all of them is their creativity, contribution, capability relevant to the field that they represented.

They never selectively overlooked something or anything in their field of expertise, nor interpreted anything to suit their predefined ideology, nor distorted or deliberately hidden certain facts.

They never allowed anything to restrain their ideas nor constrained others’ ideas through their opinionated interpretations of facts or suppressed facts to claim any special credit as scholars.

Is being a ‘scholar’ means sticking on to a particular school of thought or pandering a particular ideology based institution? Probably yes, if the term ‘scholar’ has not yet hatched out of its original etymology.

Etymologically the word ‘scholar’ emanates from ‘school’ and ‘Fowler points out that in British English it typically has been restricted to those who attend a school on a scholarship.’

That’s why the extended noun scholarship predominantly refers not to any great knowledge or skill but financial help to pursue an academic stream of study.

Fortunately, most Indians know the real meaning and caliber of artists in Bollywood as well as scholars , especially historians or should I call them distorians, who got patronized by Nehruvian ideology peddling institute of eminence.

All the above were my reactions to this http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/scholars-and-artists-should-not-be-afraid-of-offending-political-patrons/story-wfbP6ODWn20KKHAp2qx30I.html