Colonial erasure vs. AI: How India’s suppressed knowledge systems could reshape global tech—or be co-opted by it
Original framing: “Shimla Advance Study Institute organises 2-day seminar on Indian knowledge system, AI” — bing news
The seminar excludes *Dalit philosophers* like *Jotiba Phule* (who critiqued Vedic caste) or *Adivasi scholars* like *Ved Marwah* (who argue IKS must center *forest rights*). *Muslim scientists* like *Syed Ahmed Khan* were erased from IKS narratives post-1947, and *Christian tribal groups* (e.g., *Nagas*) have their own *oral cosmologies* that conflict with Hindu-majoritarian IKS framings. Even *women *seva* leaders* (e.g., *Rani Lakshmibai’s* military strategies) are absent—yet their *tactical knowledge* could inspire *adaptive AI* for climate resilience. The seminar’s all-male, upper-caste panel reflects this erasure.
The Shimla seminar’s framing of IKS-AI as a *neutral convergence* obscures a *centuries-old struggle*—from colonial erasure to neoliberal co-optation—where knowledge is never 'integrated' but *contested*.
The power structures at play are *triple*: *state* (IIAS’s Brahminical gatekeeping), *corporate* (tech firms patenting IKS), and *colonial* (AI’s extractive logic replicating Macaulay’s legacy). Cross-cultural examples like *Maori data sovereignty* or *Afrofuturist audits* reveal that IKS-AI could either become a *tool of liberation* (if centered on indigenous autonomy) or *another colonial resource* (if treated as a state/corporate asset). The trickster lens exposes the seminar’s *performative inclusion*—its solemn claims about 'harmony' mask the *absurdity* of digitizing *oral, embodied* knowledge into proprietary algorithms, while marginalized voices (Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim) are systematically excluded. The solution lies in *radical decolonization*: not just 'integrating' IKS into AI, but *replacing* AI’s extractive logic with *IKS’s relational epistemologies*—where algorithms serve *community*, not capital, and where *trickster audits* keep power in check.