Genesis

From the year 2000, a few professors of the Institute in varied capacities had begun traversing onto some of the known or lesser known pathways of Indian Knowledge Systems - allied or as a complementary endeavour to their parent discipline or perhaps as an exploration in search  of an alternative knowledge cosmology.

These cumulative efforts were instrumental for the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), Government of India, in awarding a significant grant to IIT Kharagpur for a pioneering five year mega project cluster  - ‘The Science and Heritage initiative (SandHI)  - roofing four layers of projects namely 1. deep science exploratory projects 2. deep ecology and inter-disciplinary culture studies projects 3. deep exploratory projects and 4. creative economy regeneration projects. SandHI was envisioned as a distinctive headway in creating a 'people-centric' platform to realize its vision. The idea and operational framework of 'SandHI' emanated from the convergence of four concerns drawn from an ancient realization as evident in the tradition of 'śruti' (realized or omniscient web of knowledge systems) in India.

Within a period of 5 years (2013-19), SandHI paved a new way of looking at Indian Knowledge Systems.

SandHI also funded a set of grounded projects in Kolkata - looking at the historical re-exploration and new chronological pathfinding along with a focus on the traditional continuity of India’s ‘culture industries’, ‘creative economy’ and the associated livelihood of its artisans, crafts-person, and builders. 

In addition,

the HiSTAI workshops and courses i.e., the pedagogy on the 'History of Science and Technology' in Ancient India, was mostly spearheaded by seniors like Prof. (Dr.) Somesh Kumar, Prof. (Dr.)  V N Giri, Prof. (Dr.)  Pratim Chattaraj, Prof. (Dr.) Abhijit Mukherjee, Prof. (Dr.) Anindya Sarkar, Dr. Anuradha Choudry and many others.

An enterprise in culture, music and folk arts, finally branched to become the Academy of Classical and Folk Arts (ACFA) in 2019. This was mostly pioneered by Prof. (Dr.) Pallab Dasgupta, Prof. (Dr.) Arnab Roy, Prof. (Dr.) Priyadarshi Patnaik and Prof. (Dr.) Joy Sen.

All these projects garnered significant attention of the top administration of the country, while Varanasi drew major international attention.

SandHI [https://www.iitkgpsandhi.org/]

A Science-Culture and Tradition-Technology initiative sponsored by MHRD, Government of India

The  initiatives created an aggregate basis that eventually commensurated with the ideals of the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), and finally shaped a true a priori leading to the formulation of Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System (CoE-IKS) in 2020-21  under the stewardship of Prof. (Dr.) V K Tewari, Director IIT Kharagpur and the initiating coordinators in Prof. (Dr.) Joy Sen, Dept. of Architecture and Regional Planning & Prof. (Dr.) Somesh Kumar from the Dept. of Mathematics.

Former Union Cabinet Minister for Education, śri  Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in 2020 announced the CoE-IKS to be set up at IIT Kharagpur for Interdisciplinary research across various domains of Indian Knowledge Systems.

The vision was realized through the Board of Governors’ (BoG) order of the 334th senate on the 12th of January’ 2021.

The overview encompassed

1. A predominant focus of the Center on Engineering and allied Scientific cum Humanitarian objectives of the Institute.

2. The creation of a state-of-the-art e-data base and some essential analog archiving on IKS.

3. Incorporating top experts of IKS in India and around the world.

The auspicious day of Mārgaśīrṣa pūrṇimā, 18th December, 2021, that also coincided with the 67th Convocation of IIT Kharagpur, marked the inauguration of the maiden ‘Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge Systems’  by mānanīya śri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Minister of Education and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.  The centre anchored itself on the bedrock of martyrdom, śahīds’, who sacrificed their ‘lives’ for the resurgence of Bhārata. Thus, IIT Kharagpur, the mother of IIT Systems,  pioneered the SandHI movement, making of HiSTAI and ACFA, and finally the first Center on IKS in the nation.

Prof. Joy Sen served as the ‘First Chair’ of the Centre from 2021-2023. Prof. (Dr.) Somesh Kumar’s role (2020-2021) in the formulation of the centre has been seminal.