Chennai: The Odisha Literary Festival (OLF), eastern India’s flagship literary event organised by The New Indian Express, kick-started with a great pomp. When debates over the Left and Right dominate public discourse, the more important question may be what happens inside classrooms; whether students are being taught to examine ideas or simply inherit them.

This question took centre stage at the OLF 2026 during a discussion titled ‘Ideology in Academics: Left, Right, Who is Right?’, featuring author Ratan Sharda and Makarand R Paranjape, Sri Aurobindo Chair (Hon) at Vedere University, moderated by Ravi Shankar.

Paranjape shifted the discussion from the familiar Left-versus-Right binary to the purpose of education itself.

“When we speak about the ideology of education, the real question is what is the function of education,” he said. Is education meant to free students from ideology, make them question ideology, or develop the critical capacity to decide which ideas should be adopted and which should not?

He pointed to the motto of Vidya Bharathi schools — ‘Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye’ (That is knowledge which liberates) — and used it to ask what education should actually liberate students from. Drawing from Indian texts and their often-complicated contexts, he argued that simply invoking India’s ancient intellectual traditions or claiming a return to a glorious civilisation is not enough.

“Unless we develop the capacity to distinguish all this, it’s not enough to say the NEP will take us back to a glorious civilisation. How?” he asked, stressing the need for people who can read original texts, understand their contexts and make them relevant to contemporary society.

Ratan Sharda, argued that students should not be given “tinted glasses” through which to view the world.

“If you don't open your eyes and you say, ‘I'm right or left’, I think what you need to do is present every thought, give your notes, footnotes, and let the student decide what he thinks is true. That is not happening. And that has to happen,” Sharda said.

The exchange also moved into the contested meanings of terms such as secularism and Hindutva, with Paranjape arguing that words cannot be understood without examining their historical and social context.

“Today, we just take words literally. Someone said something, you quote it out of context. You abuse each other. This is the level of discourse,” he said.

But beneath the ideological sparring was a concern shared by both speakers: the state of education itself.

Paranjape pointed to issues ranging from fake degrees and recruitment rackets to problems within universities, asking what kind of educational system is being left for the younger generation.

And perhaps that is where the Left-versus-Right debate becomes less important for a student sitting in a classroom. The challenge is not merely deciding which side is right, but developing the intellectual freedom to question both.