 Friends, it's been four years since Dr. Narendra Dhaburkar was assassinated. It's been more than two years since Govind Pansare was assassinated. At the end of this month, it will be two years since scholar M. M. Kalburki was assassinated. We all know that members of the organization Sanatan Sanstha have been named, but nothing has happened. I'm going to look at actually not just science, not just culture, but this large thing called knowledge. We know that through history, the powerful have always kept knowledge away from other people, depending on a class, caste, community, gender. So if we look at knowledge not in a limited sense, but in the widest sense possible, we naturally come to the point of inclusion. What is knowledge that includes people and what keeps people away from knowledge? So keeping these two points in mind, I want you to look at two screens before you. Not only of memories, but what we are looking at us are around us right now. On the one hand, you have the work of people like Dr. Dhaburkar being carried forward by his comrades, which looks at sharing knowledge in a completely open manner. Whether it is through science fairs and schools, whether it is actually talking about what you should do when you have a snake bite. Do actually examining some of the physical mysteries of the universe, unravelling scientific mysteries for everybody. Now in contrast to this, let's look at the other side of the picture. What has been happening to knowledge? Many, many sorts of different things. One is that we are getting, if you think of knowledge as this huge map that can extend forever as long as there are human beings. We've been getting more and more holes. What are these kind of holes? Essays have been dropped from syllabi. Poets have been dropped. So this is in schools and colleges. Holes, holes in the syllabus in the textbooks. Palash has gone. Ismachukthai is in trouble. All of Western thinking, as I have to say, knowledge can be mapped like that. And recently, of course, Maharashtra has outdone itself by dropping chunks of Mughal history. So first you have this business of making knowledge incomplete, creating holes in knowledge. Then you have stopping people from discussing. Knowledge, learning, a rational life is not possible unless we can discuss this in this manner. One example out of many, there was a day-long seminar on caste in MS University in Baroda, and it was organised by the sociologist Gansham Shah. And that was stopped. As if to say that we cannot discuss caste in a country which sees caste being manifested in a thousand ways every day. Film screening, films in general, music, everything, art. All these, the more you get rid of novels, films, discussions, seminars, you have holes in knowledge. So what is being put there in place of this? In JNU, of course, you have a tank. A tank to learn. You have Mr. Bhattra telling us to follow textbooks where there are facts, facts are turned on their heads, and fabrications which divide people are put in its place. So textbooks, institutions where people whose only claim to fame is that they're followers of the prevailing ideology. These are put in charge of institutions. Myth and literature, mythical texts, mythical figures, literary texts, all of which should be studied, all of which constitute our wealth. But to pretend that they are either social science or science or history is of course, again, distorting knowledge. There is also the fear of questions and debate. This is what we've seen in all our campuses. With, of course, the big examples of JNU, University of Hyderabad, Jadhapur University, but many, many institutions all around the country where students are not being allowed to ask questions, to challenge orthodoxy. That too is a way to destroy knowledge. Then, of course, when it comes to science, Ganesh Chaturthi is just a few days away. So it's a good time to remember that while Dr. Dabholkar spoke of eco-immersion, he didn't say, this is the style I'm talking about on this side of the screen, he didn't say, don't do your Ganesh puja. He said, if it's made of plaster of Paris, it has all this synthetic paint. The water that you immerse it in, those are common resources. So don't follow rituals which either discriminate or are anti-people. On the other hand, on the other hand, this side of the screen, we have leaders, great leaders who actually think of Ganesh as an example of cosmetic surgery. Let's also talk a little about superstition. On the one hand, superstition which exploits people, which means that Godmen, for example, can exploit people. Superstitions that can be used as we have seen recently with witch hunting, very often of course used to get property, but it's a superstition that can be used. And on the other side, we have just seen, just yesterday or day before, a lynching of a woman accused of being a witch in Jharkhand. So this is again on the other side. Today we're seeing that not only are superstitions being fought against, they're actually creating new superstitions. They're creating superstitions and science conflated so that suddenly, whether it's Kao Yorin or Kao Dang, you know, Goneil is what will keep hospitals clean and this sort of thing. Peacock tears. We all know any number of examples which would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. I want to move forward and talk about inclusion. The night before he was killed, Dr. Dabulkar was on television talking about how we should support intercast marriage and protect those who are involved. The sharp contrast on the other side is, of course, the love jihad. Let me say a little bit about caste. Dabulkar and Pansaree in different ways fought against caste division, against caste discrimination. From specific campaigns such as one village, one well that Dr. Dabulkar was involved in, to Pansaree's insistence that class and caste must be seen side by side. They worked against caste fanciates. On the other hand, what do we see? Una, manual scavenging, which continues to claim lives. And of course, the Rohit Vemula case, which is symbolic, which represents this young man but also many other Rohits in India. And we saw recently, a few days back, the panel report, which takes the entire thing somewhere else. It says, no, he didn't. It wasn't because of discrimination and anyway he was not a Dalit. It was because he had some problems. This is what it's come to. I think the most important point is that men such as Dabulkar, men such as Pansaree, did not merely give knowledge, did not merely talk about social reform. Apparently, Govind Pansaree was very fond of quoting something South American cleric told him once. Which was, when I gave bread to the hungry, they called me a saint. When I taught this man why he was hungry, they called me a communist. I think that is the step forward, not to ensure that the fight against equality, the fight for inclusiveness, the fight for a rational life, the fight for knowledge for all comes actually from the people. And I think I have shown you very briefly but clearly that on this side you have a connect with the people. These are not abstractions when you say a rational life, a life with science as a base. And here you have a total disconnect with people. And I think the real question that we need to be answering through our work in classrooms on the streets, at home, in the courts, in parliament is this is the India we want, not this one.