Decolonisation is a continuous struggle for many countries in the Global South, yet it is often overlooked within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among other ambitions, the 17 SDGs aim to realise human rights for all and to achieve gender equality. However, SDGs do not address the inherent coloniality subsumed in its logic and continue business-as-usual without acknowledging the 400-year colonial enterprise that has degraded the peace, prosperity, health and ecology in many countries in the Global South.

As SDGs are grounded in Western frameworks, they remain silent on how colonisation ‘developed’ the colonising countries through the exploitation of people in the ‘developing’ countries. While countries in the Global South continue to grapple with decolonisation of systems, policies and administrations set up by colonisers, the SDGs disregard these challenges often through the absence and silence of decolonisation efforts required towards sustainable development. Building on from scholars who have drawn on decolonial perspectives and their emphasis on acknowledging and addressing these inherent issues in sustainable development (see Vásquez-Fernández & Ahenakew pii tai poo taa, 2020), in this blog post I advocate for future iterations of the SDGs to prioritise decolonisation.

SDG 4 aims to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. By re-examining SDG 4 through the lens of decoloniality, here I offer a brief overview of current decolonisation efforts in the Indian education system, and draw on evidence from my master’s dissertation (R Bhat, 2022) and ongoing doctoral research examining the experiences of Adivasi (indigenous people of India) students in secondary education. I emphasise the importance of approaching decolonisation with sensitivity towards oppressed communities.

Adivasis, whose ancestral landscapes mostly include the forested regions, are not a homogeneous group and there are more than 500 different communities living across India. However, they have been displaced and marginalised through colonial forest land management policies and as a result of the oppression of their ways of knowing, identity and language through the imposition of a dominant culture.

‘Adivasis have been displaced and marginalised through colonial forest land management policies and as a result of the oppression of their ways of knowing, identity and language through the imposition of a dominant culture.’

In India, there is a renewed interest in ‘decolonising’ the curriculum. However, there are perils of using the anti-colonial and decolonisation rhetoric to normalise the hegemony of a dominant culture and furthering the subordination of already marginalised and minoritised groups, such as Adivasis, Dalits (caste-oppressed communities) and Muslims. In the context of rising ethnonationalism, what constitutes an ‘Indian knowledge system’ is highly influenced by the dominant culture. The inherent assimilatory agenda underpinning formal education continues to affect Adivasis’ self-assertions, identities, and their ways of living and knowing. There are increasing efforts by the government to use education to promote patriotism and Hindu nationalism by pitching ‘traditional Indian’ knowledge against ‘Western/colonial’ knowledge. The traditional versus Western/colonial debate in education has existed throughout the colonial rule, independence struggle and post-independence in India, and it has sidelined the struggles of the subaltern groups and their ways knowing. Adivasi ways of knowing, therefore, often remain in the margins in the discourse of decolonising formal education.

Hence, there is a pressing need to explore decolonising education beyond the current dominant narratives of integration of Indian knowledge systems. It is time to critically evaluate what it means to decolonise education in India considering the sociopolitical and historical context of marginalisation of Adivasis. The caste system predates colonial rule and the formal education system introduced during colonial rule privileged the upper caste domination in education and it continues to marginalise students from Adivasi and Dalit communities. Many students from these communities face harassment and other forms of oppression in education due to ideas of caste supremacy that exist among the teachers, administrators and peers, and are embedded within the structures of the education system. Disproportionately higher dropout rates among students from these communities in secondary and higher education (see Bandyopadhyay & Chugh, 2020) call for challenging and dismantling the oppressive colonial as well as casteist structures embedded in the education system. While the decolonisation of education systems is often seen as separate from the narrative of SDG 4, it is crucial to see them as intertwined and enmeshed. Decolonisation efforts are critical in our endeavours towards achieving SDG 4.

‘Many students from Adivasi and Dalit communities face harassment and other forms of oppression in education due to ideas of caste supremacy that exist among the teachers, administrators and peers, and are embedded within the structures of the education system.’

Decolonisation is as integrated and indivisible as the other three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. Re-examining SDG 4 through a decolonising agenda underscores the necessity of prioritising the so often silenced voices of oppressed communities in the Global South, so that we can fruitfully achieve SDG 4. This blog post makes a case for upcoming iterations of SDG 4 to focus on decolonisation of education systems as a crucial step towards sustainable futures, one that places the voices of the oppressed at the forefront.

References

Bandyopadhyay, M., & Chugh, S. (2020). Status of secondary education in India: A review of status, challenges and policy issues. In J. Tilak (Ed.), Universal secondary education in India (pp. 17–49). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_2

Batra, P. (2021). Re-imagining curriculum in India: Charting a path beyond the pandemic. PROSPECTS, 51(1–3), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09518-6  

R Bhat, D. (2022). Laying methodological foundations for educational research with an Adivasi community [Master’s thesis, University of Bristol]. https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/laying-methodological-foundations-for-educational-research-with-a

Vásquez-Fernández, A. M., & Ahenakew, C. (2020). Resurgence of relationality: Reflections on decolonizing and indigenizing ‘sustainable development’. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.03.005

Xaxa, A. F., & Devy, G. N. (2021). Being Adivasi: Existence, entitlements, exclusion. Penguin Random House.