“The Gross Domestic Product or the Gross National Product is not what makes a nation rich, but indigenous social knowledge. In that sense, India is the richest nation in the world with knowledge handed over through generations,” said Vice Chancellor of Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University K. Jayakumar.
Inaugurating the first School Folklore Club in the State at the St. Michaels Girls’ Higher Secondary School in Kozhikode on Wednesday, the former bureaucrat urged students to identify the lies that are embedded in our minds along with English education. “They include the belief that our culture, language and knowledge are inferior to the West . We have to get out of the colonial slavery of our minds and start thinking to achieve real independence,” Mr. Jayakumar said.
A farmer is a textbook of so much knowledge that he got from his ancestors, which includes beliefs and skills, he said. When we ignore Malayalam, we are ignoring this knowledge as well. Hence the Folklore Academy has a huge task before it, to convince a whole society that everything traditional is not uncivilised; that all beliefs and traditions are not superstitions, the Vice Chancellor added.
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Chairman of the Folklore Akademi B. Mohammed Ahmed who presided over the function, said that the academy was planning to keep its more than 1,000 Folklore Clubs very active henceforth, with an aim to bring back the traditions.
Secretary of the Academy M. Pradeep Kumar said that the Academy’s plan was to start such clubs in all schools and colleges in the State and that it was expecting an announcement from the Education Minister to this effect very soon. The clubs will organise regular programmes like folk arts performances and talks by experts, which will be completely funded by the Academy. The Academy was willing to publish the anthologies of folk knowledge collected by the students through research. Besides, the Academy will also provide authentic artistes who could train the students in Folk arts forms so that they could perform in School Arts Festivals, Mr. Pradeep Kumar said.