 Professor Ashish Nandi has been called rather accused of being several things, a public intellectual, a philosopher, a psychoanalyst, a theorist, a leftist, a casteist, a centrist. He describes himself rather more poetically as an intellectual street fighter and a reason buster. One of the most influential and innovative thinkers of our time, Professor Nandi's work is inspiring and at the same time a little bit disturbing. Disturbing because it compels us to think about things, to question our own assumption, to question our own comfortable knowledge that we turn to so often. We are very privileged to have him here at the Australian National University, at the College of Asia and the Pacific, at the School of Culture History and Language, talking to us about the future of the university. I wanted to ask you, following up from the things that you said about the modern university, what according to you are the limits of the modern university? The modern university at one plane is the negation of the idea of university as generations of people have visualized and imagined it because there is no universe of knowledge to which it is catering. It is increasingly becoming a technocratic finishing school and that is not the university's job. For that there were guilds, technocratic training institutions and so on and so forth. The universities were needed to give your specialized knowledge as a context, something that will be universal, that something will confirm to the norms the society considers important and not only your own society but also to some extent the assumption was this that the civilized world will find it ethically acceptable and also find where knowledge is not leading to only such a substitute but also exploration. I think in all these counts, on all these counts, the modern university is increasingly looking less and less like a university. I am afraid that it has now become fashionable to say that we should give to the students what they want. Yes, we should give to the students what they want but they should try to get some of that outside university and also the university is not doing his job by vending certitudes. University's job is not to give you a certitude but to declare which areas are uncertain, which areas a majority might be saying one thing but there is a minority voice which also is important and should be listened to. These are the kinds of choices the university should offer that the universities are infrequently not doing. And you said universities now offer more and more just certitudes. Do you think that is a reflection of the changing nature of modern society or what would you attribute this kind of shift in the function of the university? So many certitudes of our forefathers we have shed and we have began to we have began to live in a world where certitudes are in short supply. Now, we are not accepting that we are unable to believe that we live in a rudderless world that we do not have a benign divinity looking after our welfare. We are unable to believe that on the whole human values will triumph over hatred, greed and violence but we are insecure also that we have lost this faith. So we try to get certitude from science. But science is a man made artifact. What science tells you is the truth today does not remain the truth tomorrow. And sciences truths are also relative. It cannot give the kind of certitude earlier times could give you. Now, university's job is to scan and find out where we should be relatively more secure to say that we have certainties about certain things. And where about certain things we are not have to be uncertain. We have to live with uncertainty. Let live that issue open for the future generation or not try to close it in the name of new fangled ideologies and violent visions. And that the universities are failing to do because the production of rounded intellectually alert individuals who can negotiate our world at present times without feeling terribly rudderless or terribly uncertain and anxious is I believe not part of the mandate of a modern university. Modern university teaches you knowledge management not knowledge generation and crucial part of knowledge generation is this that you learn to say that we do not know it for certain. You cannot say that genetically modified food will not do you any harm whatsoever even after 20 generations with that certain certainty. You cannot and many scientists say that you cannot say that the kind of intrusive surgical and other forms of therapy for cancer. He will not in the long run diminish the quality of life even while extended in your life by a few months or a few weeks. We do not have the courage to say that we have to maintain a stupidly optimistic stance and depend entirely on sciences latest predictions as a kind of gospel truths. So, instead of the divinity beings located somewhere up in the heavens they are located amongst us and we are quite happily become becoming their slaves. So, in all this propagation of certitudes of management of knowledge there are certain kinds of knowledges that are completely excluded from the university. So, what kinds of knowledges are these that find increasingly no place in the university. The ones which require one to one relationships the ones which require a human touch and human relations where you cannot dismiss human relations and this one to one interaction as a noise factor and something that is unpredictable and distorts your scientific findings. Let me give you an example an MIT professor wrote a software program for psychotherapy and it found rather wide acceptance amongst many psychiatrists the world over who began to use it as a good system of psychotherapy. After a few years the discoverer himself wrote an essay saying that actually I devised this to show that psychotherapy cannot be done by a software program because psychotherapy needs a human touch a one to one relationship between the therapist and the patient. It just cannot be mechanically done and I am astonished that my software program is being used and even evaluated as a genuine psychotherapeutic technique you know so this is an example but this kind of examples can be found all around us that we are looking for easy solutions to complex issues. Human beings are complex human beings they cannot be treated like the dogs of Pablo ring a bell and the dog comes and looks for the food that is not us and that we are unable to accept because our predictability about the future diminishes our efficiency and productivity diminishes because you are dealing with human complexities and I think the universities are not prepared to accept this anymore because people want easy solutions they want they want employable educations they want themselves to be employable rather and they are unwilling to cast a second glance at subjects which have nothing to do with this area of specialization but area of specialization requires a larger knowledge you specialize in a particular area in the context of a larger knowledge system that touch that larger touch is missing. Speaking of this you know speaking of Paolo's dogs I think we are also seeing an increasing audit culture in universities where everything is about measurable impact outcome and deliverables and what do you think are the long or short term effects of that kind of audit culture that is increasingly becoming pervasive across universities in the world it is exceedingly dangerous the emphasis on productivity simultaneously also means the impact that that we no longer give any importance to the productivity and in a world where natural resources are shrinking where we have to think in terms of future generations and their access to new sources of energy there we cannot only emphasize productivity at some point of time we also have to emphasize reproductivity traditionally there was an emphasis on reproductivity that was given high priority even if we cannot give that much of priority we have to pay attention to the productivity what that which is sustainable in the long run because we are otherwise leaving no options open for the coming generations to choose or actualize the visions they have of the future and their concept of a desirable society it is our concept of desirable society which dominates