Academia :: The Fifth Estate
Imperatives for a New India

Namaskar, It gives me immense pleasure to welcome you all on this Monday afternoon. It’s indeed a great privilege & honor to have hosted you all, the representative section of India’s Academia which we at ReTHINK INDIA have chosen to term as The Fifth Estate.

While the role, relevance and distribution of rights & responsibilities between the formal estates of Legislature, Executive & Judiciary are well laid out in our Constitutional framework; while Media which is ascribed to as the fourth estate of a vibrant democracy has chiselled out its own characteristic space; Academia – which we at ReTHINK INDIA choose to term as the fifth estate – is yet to carve out its own independent intellectual existence even after being at the forefront of all national progress.

From Syama Prasad Mookerjee to Pranab Mukherjee walking through Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan & Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam India’s tryst with Higher Education as the centripetal force for national rejuvenation has been amply evident whereby members of the fifth estate have emerged to be at the helm of affairs and provided unprecedented leadership to this antiquated civilization catapulting it to the next leap of lasting progress & prosperity.

It has remained the concerted & continued effort of ReTHINK INDIA to kindle this dominant discourse and chalk out ways and means of catapulting Academia to its intended and rightful status in the national superstructure. The National Convention of eduLEADERS & eduPRENEURS which has been convened today is an explicit attempt in this regard.

The felicitation of some of the leading Visionary eduLEADERS & eduPRENEURS is not just a solemn tribute to the noble & humble profession of nurturing young minds & making them employable but is a dominant move to initiate the creation of a closely knit community of the most versatile members of the fifth estate which can take the lead in delineating the national discourse exercising its indomitable intellectual prowess.

While electoral politics leading to the constitution of the first estate – the legislature – has its own relevance and importance in a modern constitutional democracy, the imperative of inducing an intellectual stability pertaining to the contours of national progress lies to a much larger extent on Academia – the fifth estate.

A University is aptly named so, as it harbours a distinctive Universe within its bosom having its sovereign intellectual independence constantly meandering towards ascertaining ways and means of ensuring larger public good across frontiers of human affairs irrespective of any superficial segmentation.

In a growing era of convergence whereby the advances in science & technology have disrupted the entire spectrum of Governance, Administration & Management, leading to the advent of a more flat structure, the deeper involvement of the fifth estate in stewarding the national discourse would need to get more intense. Their pro-active say in the larger issues confronting the national body need to be amplified and institutionalised. With 790 parliamentarians and 789 Vice-Chancellors we have a political and academic representation of almost similar order. ReTHINK INDIA shall be endeavouring to further crystalize this discourse and build upon it further.

Instead of being a sheer follower of a grand narrative, the Indian Academia need to be the frontrunner of creating and championing the same. It’s like re-calibrating its very coordinate axes putting itself to the very centroid and leading the way forward.

Aano bhadra krtavo yantu vishwatah

आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः

Says the Rig Veda meaning thereby

Let Noble Thoughts come to us from all directions

But thoughts would come, only when they would be germinated in all directions and this shall only happen when  Academia – the Fifth Estate – shall assume its self-ordained task of becoming the foremost estate in championing the cause & case of a New India.