Inclusive Knowledge Commons: MIT Open Scholarship, UNESCO Open Science, the UN SDGs, and Chattampi Swamikal’s Vision in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Examines debates on open access and open science through a comparative historical lens, bringing into dialogue MIT’s Open Scholarship framework, UNESCO’s Open Science agenda aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the work of Chattampi Swamikal (1853–1924), a key intellectual figure of the Kerala Renaissance. While earlier debates on open scholarship emphasized technical, institutional, and economic challenges within a digital research ecosystem, recent discourse increasingly foregrounds inclusivity, linguistic diversity, community engagement, and knowledge as a global public good. The paper argues that the ethical assumptions underlying these contemporary frameworks have a striking antecedent in Swamikal’s late-nineteenth-century insistence on the social responsibility of knowledge. Drawing on his writings and pedagogical interventions - particularly his commitment to vernacular education, critique of caste-based monopolies over learning, and advocacy of public dissemination - the study interprets open access, open science, and open knowledge as modern institutional expressions of an earlier emancipatory epistemology. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes policy recommendations for an inclusive knowledge commons that integrates infrastructure, governance, incentives, linguistic accessibility, and ethical engagement. It concludes that sustainable and equitable open access requires not only technological infrastructure and policy reform, but also an ethical reorientation toward knowledge as a shared civilizational trust - a principle articulated with remarkable clarity in Chattampi Swamikal’s vision more than a century ago.