Polymath academy or echo chamber? A personal take on knowledge, control, and …

Polymath academy or echo chamber? A personal take on knowledge, control, and WhatsApp moderation A few months back, I was made a member of a WhatsApp group called Polymath Academy. Frankly, I didn’t know what the word polymath meant until its administrator, veteran Gujarat-based sociologist Vidyut Joshi — with whom I have been interacting since the mid-1990s when he was with the Gandhi Labour Institute — told me it refers to a person with an exceptional academic record. One of the few who guided me in writing some crucial news articles for The Times of India, where I served from 1993 to 2012, and thereafter on this blog, Prof Joshi’s deep understanding of social issues stands out in stark contrast to the general lack of intellectual insight in Gujarat. I generally avoid going through every post on the WhatsApp groups I’m part of, though I occasionally share links to my reports and blogs — published on my news blog, counterview.net — to widen their reach. I’ve typically done this in several media groups, but lately, I thought: why not do the same in the group formed by Prof Joshi so that academics could also read, reflect, and critique them? What
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