Whither the humanities and social sciences in the universities in Sri Lanka? – A short essay

By Prof. Susirith Mendis
Former Vice-Chancellor
University of Ruhuna.
(susmend2610@gmail.com)

I read with much interest, the article by Prof.  Farzana Haniffa, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, titled ‘Undervaluing Social Science and Humanities teaching in the Sri Lankan University System’ which appeared in ‘The Island’ of 1st February 2022. I understand the predicament she talks about. In that article, Prof. Haniffa alleges that “there is very little recognition or acceptance of the kind of knowledge the H and SS can bring to the table at the level of the UGC mediated Quality Assurance process.” The good professor goes on to describe the diminished role and acceptance of the H and SS in the quality assurance process within our university community. Whereas I agree that there is a need to take immediate cognizance of the need of a large role for H and SS in those processes, I feel that this disregard has deeper and fundamental dimensions.

Hence, I thought it pertinent to submit this article which I wrote for a Prof. Vinnie Vitharana Felicitation volume that was published by the Department of Sinhala, University of Ruhuna. I am submittiing an appropriately re-written version to ‘The Island’ in response.

What I write here is likely to be controversial and may provoke those in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences faculties to disagree with some of the thoughts and, perhaps, some suggestions that I make herein.

When one writes on the humanities in the universities, it is imperative that we use some comparative measure. To my mind, without doubt, the ‘Gold Standard’ in this regard is the University of Peradeniya Faculty of Arts (then, the University of Ceylon). Among the great academics who walked tall down the corridors of Peradeniya was the intellectual colossus of that time, Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra, who gave real meaning to the Sinhala cultural revival of 1956.

Their students kept their ‘flame inviolate’. Professors, Leslie Gunawardene, KM de Silva, KNO Dharmadasa, Ashley Halpe, Merlin Peiris, K. Sivathamby and Ralph Peiris are some names that readily come to mind. They epitomised and represented the highest traditions of academics of post-independent Sri Lanka. Learned and cultured, many had excellent bilingual  skills and were exacting in the quality and standards they expected of university academics.

Let me pose some questions. They will remain unanswered in this essay simply because the answers must necessarily lie in extensive and in-depth socio-anthropological research. I am a medical academic with not the slightest pretense to such capability.

Can we truthfully say that the situation improved thereafter? Were the academic qualities and standards maintained thereafter? Were the next generation of academics and scholars able to fit into their shoes once they departed the scene? There are a few exceptions, I agree. But we know that exceptions make the rule. And the rule is that the new generation has not made themselves accomplished as creative intellectuals in the genre and quality of their predecessors. Is there a formula to turnout ‘creative intellectuals’? If so, have we lost the formula?

Was the socio-political upheaval of 1956 itself to blame for this? Did we produce an inward-looking, insular, narrowly nationalistic intellectual class? Especially in the humanities? Or is the present unsatisfactory situation arising out of other causations?

Would some academics argue that the ‘nativisation’ of the intellectual and the academic, post’56, is in itself a positive outcome; that the pre-’56 intellectuals were the remnants of the British ruling class – the “Pukka Sahibs”; whereas the ‘children of 56’ are the true inheritors of the earth, born of earth, sons (and daughters) of the soil, nurtured by the cultural founts and milieu  of indigenous Sri Lankan traditions?

One is reminded of the famous statement of the Black-Algerian political theorist, psychoanalyst and revolutionary-philosopher, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) in his celebrated book “The Wretched of the Earth”. Referring to the elites of post-World War II, post-independent, post-colonial nations, he wrote that they use “glutinous words that stick to their teeth”. The sub-title of the book is more descriptive and intended – “A Negro Psychoanalyst’s Study of the Problems of Racism and Colonialism in the World Today”. Fanon argued that language has a role in moulding the attitudes of “natives”, particularly those victimised by colonisation. He believed that the language that the colonials taught us made us really incoherent when describing our socio-cultural and political predicaments. Almost saying that we spoke in a language, the real meaning of which we ourselves did not clearly understand. Or we were merely mouthing words of our colonial masters. So were our last generation of pre-independent, pre-’56 intellectuals, elites as Fanon describes them? Or are we now living in an era where the thoughts and words of Fanon and like-minded intellectuals have become irrelevant?

It might be opportune at this point in my essay to cite two Sri Lankans (intellectuals in their own right) that may give some insight to the current dilemma and predicament of the Humanities and Social Sciences. These are anecdotal, but since they were said in my presence, though not directly to me, I vouch for their veracity.

The first is during the time I spent (1980-83) as Lecturer in Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine, Peradeniya. I was more at the Medical Education Unit (MEU) there, than the Department of Physiology, as it was a WHO Regional Training Centre in Medical Education and had many medical academics from South Asian countries visiting regularly. One regular visitor to the MEU was Prof. Thiru Kandiah (then Senior lecturer). Talking about the lack of originality of thought and hence academic creativity, Prof. Thiru Kandiah said (a quote from memory) “… Until our intellectuals begin thinking in their own native language (Sinhala and Tamil), we will not generate original thoughts that are essential for genuinely creative knowledge.” When I reminded him of this statement when I met him after a lapse of nearly 30 years, he could not quite remember that he said it. Neither did he say that he agrees with that thought. Perhaps, he had changed his mind about such a concept in the intervening years. I did not ask him whether he had. But taking it in the context of what Fanon wrote in 1961, this is a concept that needs to be debated by academic psychologists, linguists, anthropologists and other social scientists. But, if this theory is correct, since we now have academics who are mostly monolingual in academic accomplishments and training, and therefore they are likely to be ‘thinking’ in their own language, there has to be a gush of academic writings and publications that are truly creative. Is there?

The second is a chance conversation that I was party to during a tea break at a conference in Colombo. Prof. Chris Weeramantry was the keynote speaker. Again, on the subject of intellectual creativity, he observed that in the Sciences, which are based on the Western, Judeo-Christian, and Graeco-Roman traditions that we know today as the Western Philosophical Tradition, we will hardly, if ever, be creative. We will continue to mimic the West most often and if ever we become creative in the sciences, at best, they will be extremely marginal. He further said that we have real contributions to make to the world of knowledge in the humanities and law. Humanities, because our indigenous cultures and value systems are based on the Eastern Philosophical Tradition and in Law we have a very long legal tradition based on Buddhist Ethics. Do you agree?

Therefore, we should have had a great flowering of creative intellectual activity emanating from the humanities and social sciences and the law. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, we have not seen such creativity. Large numbers of academics in the humanities and social sciences, due to their limited language competencies have a limited world view. Generation of new knowledge requires an open and expansive mind set that can be acquired only through widening one’s experience directly or through extensive reading – particularly, readings from other experiences and cultures. I have observed that there is a resurgence in the translations of classics from English, Russian, German and French literature into Sinhala.

There are, but less so, even from the Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Are these truly quality works of translation? What is the readership? Have these had any impact on the ‘intellectual creativity of monolingual academics? If not, why?

Has the neo-liberal economics that pervade the globe affected the creativity in the humanities and the arts? Is globalization somehow responsible? Have our ‘thinkers’ who have no financial/economic value in the marketplace been replaced by commercial interests? Why have academics and intellectuals succumbed to the marketplace without much resistance? Not physical, but intellectual? Why is there no debate, as one would have expected, on whether education is a public good or a marketable commodity? Is it because our intellectual critical mass has so declined that the remaining cannot make the difference? Is this not due to the decline in the quality and standard of our academia in the Humanities and Social Sciences?

In my view, there is an intellectual/academic crisis in the areas of the humanities and social sciences in all universities in Sri Lanka at present. Though it is, perhaps, least in the University of Peradeniya, the situation has gone beyond the limits of complacency. I use a medical analogy to describe a university. The sciences – medicine, engineering, agriculture, applied and pure Sciences – form the bones, sinew and muscles and blood that runs in the veins of a university. The humanities and the arts must provide the ‘spirit’, the ‘soul’ of a university. This was how the Peradeniya Faculty of Arts played its true role in its best years. That is why it was a fount of creativity in its early years and the pride of our university system.

The Harvard Magazine in its 1998 issue (nearly 25 years ago), has an article titled ‘The Humanities at Harvard: A Profile’. The article commences with the following which I quote:

“For nearly two centuries, learning at Harvard largely meant learning in the humanities. Other fields were taught–mathematics, for instance, and, increasingly in the nineteenth century, natural science and the emerging social sciences. With foresight, Harvard often led the change away from higher education centered almost exclusively in humanistic pursuits. But the humanistic tradition remains vital.”

Later, it goes on to say:

“Although Harvard undergraduates in the humanities are heard to worry about the relevance and ‘utility’ of their studies for the purpose of later employment, no statistical evidence indicates that Harvard-minted humanists have a tougher time later in the job markets, or that they become any less successful than their peers.”

Though the registration of students for the humanities has fallen, and the demand is less compared with other professional study programmes, the fact that Harvard considers the humanistic tradition as vital, is noteworthy.

The online Harvard Business Review (31 March 2011) has this article titled ‘Want innovative thinking? Hire from the Humanities’ which is necessary reading for those in want of a justification for the persistence of humanities education in the universities. I will quote from it at length:

“How many people in your organization are innovative thinkers who can help with your thorniest strategy problems? How many have a keen understanding of customer needs? … There are plenty of MBAs and even PhDs in economics, chemistry, or computer science, in the corporate ranks. Intellectual wattage is not lacking. It’s the right intellectual wattage that’s hard to find… This is because our educational systems focus on teaching science and business students to control, predict, verify, guarantee, and test data. It doesn’t teach how to navigate “what if” questions or unknown futures…The knowledge I use as CEO can be acquired in two weeks…he main thing a student needs to be taught is how to study and analyse things (including) history and philosophy. People trained in the humanities who study Shakespeare’s poetry, or Cezanne’s paintings, (for instance) have learned to play with big concepts, and to apply new ways of thinking to difficult problems that can’t be analyzed in conventional ways.”

The author goes on to say that the ‘liberal arts crowd’ can help when (i) there is ambiguity and complexity in business problems – both opportunities and threats – that the usual logical thinking cannot solve; (ii) where what is needed in innovation and ‘out of the box’ thinking; and (iii) when looking at the ‘big picture’. The author further says that a case in point is “….., who openly acknowledged how studying the beautiful art of calligraphy led him to design the Macintosh interface.”

Can Professor Haniffa tell us whether she and her department prepare students to be graduates who can fill in roles that the CEO above talks about? Forgive me, if I think that it is mostly unlikely except for may be – a significant few.

Unlike in Sri Lanka, the study of the humanities has been included into the sciences, including medicine. The Yale School of Medicine, for instance, has a Medical Humanities  and the Arts Council based at the medical school. Based at the School of Medicine, the Council is an advocate for the medical humanities and the arts, encouraging and coordinating rigorous scholarship in these areas, including medical student research.

We did make attempts to do so at the Faculty of Medicine at Ruhuna, but it has gone into abeyance and a natural death, I think, due to a lack of interest. But, fortunately, the Colombo Medical School has recently established a Department of Medical Humanities and is doing, in my view, critically important pioneering work towards producing better, thinking, and more humanistic doctors.

The University of Cambridge, School of the Humanities and Social Sciences in its website proudly announced a few years ago that “outstanding graduates from across the world want to study the Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge, and the School wants to take them.” The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz had announced the creation of a £300,000 fund to be awarded to Cambridge University researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

In Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Higher Education had committed about a decade ago, Rs. 100 million each year for the next five years to take six universities to international status. Together with the offers of financial support to the humanities and social sciences faculty academics to pursue doctoral studies, this is a golden opportunity for the academics in the humanities and social sciences to grasp with both hands. I wonder whether the scheme is still on.

Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, there is negative thinking at the present time that the learning of the humanities is a waste of time. Its graduates have no future in obtaining gainful employment and therefore the humanities must be replaced with ‘marketable’ degree programmes. Modules and courses in computer science and IT is beginning to be included in the humanities curricular to make ‘arts graduates’ more marketable. Why have we reached this viewpoint? I believe that the academics in the humanities must accept a large part of the blame. The faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Arts in our universities have not equipped themselves to meet the challenges of the present and the future. This must change, and change for the better, radically and very soon.

We need a more vibrant academic faculty in the humanities and social sciences; (i) a faculty that is grappling with the current social-political issues; (ii) academics that can develop new analytical tools and frames to dissect not only socio-cultural and political issues, but existential, ethical and philosophical issues as well; (iii) development of quality research programmes to search for answers to the Sri Lankan experiences in a post-conflict situation; (iv) look for explanations for the socio-cultural bases of violence in our society; (v) create a academic framework for a more responsible and intellectually responsive media culture; and (vi) build interdisciplinary degree programmes and research projects with the science and legal disciplines. These are some of the current imperatives that must be thought through among academics in the humanities and social sciences.

In this essay, I, who come from the sciences, have made a case for the resurgence of the Humanities and Social Sciences in our universities. It is up to the academics in these faculties to take up the challenges with rigorous scholarship and commitment and conviction. It is time, and never too late, for a definitive revival and rejuvenation of the best traditions of teaching, learning and intellectual creativity of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the universities in Sri Lanka. But I do not see that happening. Both at national policy level nor at the level of academics in the humanities and social sciences.