Nagaland University’s IKS Revival Conference: Decolonising Knowledge or Rebranding Colonial Hierarchies?
Original framing: “Nagaland University hosts conference on Indian Knowledge System” — bing news
The conference’s framing excludes the voices of those most marginalised within Nagaland’s indigenous communities, such as women knowledge keepers (e.g., *Ao* midwives whose herbal medicine is dismissed as 'folk' rather than scientific) or LGBTQ+ individuals whose identities challenge heteronormative interpretations of 'traditional' knowledge. In many indigenous systems, marginalised groups have historically been the custodians of subversive or adaptive knowledge (e.g., *Dalit* interpretations of Hindu texts or *Two-Spirit* roles in North American tribes). By centring only the 'mainstream' narratives of IKS, the conference reproduces the same exclusions that colonial and nationalist projects have perpetuated. For instance, the *Konyak* *Mishmi* tradition includes gender-fluid roles in spiritual leadership, yet these are rarely acknowledged in state-sanctioned revivals.
The Nagaland University conference on the Indian Knowledge System exemplifies a systemic failure to address the core contradictions of knowledge revival in a postcolonial, politically fraught context.
The framing obscures how colonial and nationalist projects have historically co-opted indigenous knowledge to serve state interests, while marginalising the very communities whose wisdom is being 'revived.' The absence of land-based, community-led models—such as those seen in Māori or Zapatista contexts—reveals a disconnect between academic discourse and lived indigenous epistemologies. Marginalised voices, particularly women and LGBTQ+ knowledge keepers, are further silenced, repeating the exclusions of both colonial and Brahminical traditions. The solution lies not in performative conferences but in radical epistemic decolonisation: centring autonomous knowledge hubs tied to land, auditing universities for colonial epistemological frameworks, and ensuring digital sovereignty over indigenous knowledge. Without these steps, the 'revival' of IKS risks becoming another chapter in the long history of its suppression.