Praful Bidwai on Revision of School Curriculum and Textbooks

If Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has his way, our children and grandchildren will grow up believing that "Hindu culture", as the Sangh Parivar defines it, is the sole influence that has shaped India since the Vedic times. This culture, they will learn, has remained unchanged since time immemorial. All other cultures, civilisational influences and traditions are extraneous, "impure", alien, not part of the Indian "heritage". They are at best only marginal to the values relevant to us. In this view, "Bharatiya culture" is mankind's highest achievement. It is at once all- encompassing, but also infinitely tolerant (never mind the contradiction between the hegemonic ambitions of being "all-encompassing ", and respect for other views).

Among the other "truths" and "values" that textbooks will teach our school children:

* The Aryans were India's original inhabitants; they never displaced or colonised Dravidians or indigenous tribal people and forest-dwellers.

* According to the Ramayana legend, Sri Lanka was an opulent "city". It had "excellent houses, decorated with wonderful ... jewels, golden archways, pearls, diamonds, gems, silver, etc ... " But it was not "cultured". In "refreshing contrast, Ayodhya was both civilised and cultured. People were learned, free from greed, truthful and with no proclivity towards stealing or petty-mindedness"

* There was no contradiction between Hinduism, on the one hand, and Buddhism or Jainism, on the other - despite rich evidence on the hounding and banishment of these faiths and their followers. Hinduism merely "absorbed" Buddhism.

* Indians are "a race". More, they have "a mission" as a race. This race must understand "the destiny it has to shape, the place it has to occupy in the march of nations ... "

* Hindu and Muslim "periods" clearly mark the relevant watersheds in Indian history.

* It is "a fundamental postulate of Hindu thought that every way of life has its own contribution to make ... " But "the ultimate reality" is defined by Krishna alone. "He proclaims a doctrine which is fundamental to all Hindu thought ... Owing to this approach we are reinterpreting our own doctrines and doing readjustment (sic). For example, we have absorbed Buddhism ... "

* "Our concept of the joint family is a unique contribution in the history of mankind. Generation after eneration we have developed it". The break-up of some of the oppressive structures of the joint family is thus not progressive, but a setback.

* India, irrespective of who ruled it, has never tried to dominate or subjugate other people, cultures or lands -never mind our marauding kings, brutal rajahs or the fact that whole ministries were once assigned by 'Hindu" kings to the specific task of destroying and looting temples!

* "Bharatiya culture is the only culture which has understood the life problems (sic) in their totality and has made a continuous effort to solve them. In the history of the world, it is the only effort to see the science, philosophy, religion, psychology and social life in an integrated form." (sic).

* "Spirituality is the core of our culture. We have tried to see the reality or truth hidden in the material world. This is the theme of Bharatiya life work. This is the theme of Bhartiya life work. It is the backbone of her existence, the foundation of her being -the spiritualisation of the human race." (sic).

* The "spirit of Bharat" and "Bharatiyata" is Dharma. This is "the ultimate source of all values of human society". In the Vedic period, "there existed no state, no king, no penalty and no criminal, all protected one another by virtue of Dharma". The best description of Dharma is naturally to be found in the Manusmriti, 'which gives ten characteristics which are related to human conduct ... "

"Naturally, Bharat excelled in every branch of Science - Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Sculpture. Pharmacology, etc. Our sages realised reality lying in every sphere of life". Bhaskaracharya, were Hindus. Also, "in each and every field of art, architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, drama and music, we were the leaders". Our temples " ... may perhaps be said to be infinitely superior to the cumulative achievements of our artists." (sic)

* "When the central idea driving and inspiring the way of life ceases to exist, a culture dies along with its adherents. The cultures of Greece, Rome and Egypt died the day the representatives of those lands failed to find fulfillment in living up to its values. So it is our duty to preserve our ancient heritage ... "

* "We firmly believe in the Vedantic concept that each soul is potentially divine ... We have to reach the concept of 'I am God' ... " The basic task of education today is to inculcate this knowledge.

These ideas form the core of the "discussion papers" being prepared by some of the principal institutions that draw up school curricula, including the National Open School (which has over a million pupils, and from whose document the verbatim quotes are taken here). Other bodies such as the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) are also about to adopt a similar approach to defining "Bharat" and promoting "Bharatiyata" through education. These papers not only stipulate the general objectives and goals that educational courses must achieve, but also substantially lay down some of their core content. The emphasis is on Hindutva with its exclusivist, chauvinist notions of nationalism.

All future writers of our textbooks will have to conform to these values, objectives and content descriptions. In practice, this will apply not just to the Central elementary schools and the CBSE systems, but to educational institutions at the State level too. Most of these participate either in the donor-driven District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), or the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which Joshi has just inaugurated to consolidate all non-formal education - even as he, has more or less dismantled the National Literacy Mission. These include the Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and the Vanvasi Shiksha Kendras set up by RSS pracharaks, schools run by Friends of Tribals Society of Sangh sympathiser P.D. Chitlangia, and other non-governmental organisation of the saffron variety ... This adds up a massive brainwashing programme - to be accomplished through the simple device of an administrative fatwa issued by the Human Resource Development Ministry for curriculum revision. No one has ever attempted anything one-tenth as ambitious as Joshi has actually ordered into existence Earlier, textbooks, especially history textbooks, were manipulated to introduce a communal bias. There have been many instances of extravagant claims about India's achievements and arrogant or disdainful statements about other cultures and peoples. But this is the first time that the whole curriculum for Classes X and XII is being so comprehensively rewritten. This is not revision with a view to updating it. It involves violent recasting and radical changes - in particular, changes in values and ideologies.

These "discussion papers" are reminiscent of the fatwas issued in Hitler's Germany to inculcate the spirit of "nationalism" among schoolchildren, and to specify in the minutest detail what constitutes authentic. "German culture", why the idea of racial purity, and the sacred nature of the Aryan "master race" must never be questioned ...

M.M.Joshi is clearly the most dedicated hardcore RSS Minister in the present government. An RSS insider has been quoted as saying: "We think Joshiji has done the best work. He is the most frequent to come here to consult RSS organising secretary K. Sudarshan. We know that our project of nation-building cannot be accomplished without basic education". Joshi is certainly a pillar of Hindutva ...

.. Hindutva's education and culture project ... is far more dangerous and insidious than the construetion of the Ram temple. It involves manipulating minds, infiltrating hatred into them, encouraging them to think smugly in stereotypes, and making people's self-identity dependant on bigotry and false pride. Ultimately, the project means yoking the mind to a hateful, communal, nationalism – for generations to come. Textbooks are not revised frequently.

The last major curriculum revision was way back in 1976. What happens to today's battle over school curricula will influence a whole generation. That's why Joshi's despicable Project of Prejudice must note be allowed to prevail.  (Source: The Frontline, 24 December, 1999)

Setting up Aunt Sallys to Knock Down

Editorial, The Statesman, 22 Dec., 1999

Is there a deliberate and concerted plan to promote the Hindutva vision of history in the fields of primary education and scholarly research? ... A "discussion paper" on syllabi says that the "curricula must inculcate and maintain a sense of pride in being an Indian" and that "the remnants of the alien legacy of the pre-Independence period have to be shed completely". There is nothing wrong with that, except that ... writing history for school children or for adults, for example, is not about glorifying Indian culture and Indian civilisation, especially when the word "Indian" is defined to suit partisan and ideological needs. History is about objectively re-evaluating the past in the light of all the material available at a given moment ... Marxists and Nationalists never gave Golwalkar and his brood a fair hearing ... But, they did not hallucinate. Like K.S. Lal, who attributes the migration of indentured labour to Mauritius and the West Indies to the fiscal exactions of the Khilji era? Or like the people who devised the Sanskrit Jnan course for the RSS-run Vidya Bharati schools and who teach that China was first populated by Indians.

One can multiply examples. An NCERT textbook, meant to "inculcate a sense of pride in being an Indian" makes Subhas Bose the leader of an agitation in AP and dates the coming of Europeans to this country from 1748. This reflects the general Hindutva disregard for facts ... There is no way in which academic establishments can be made to serve a specific political purpose refashioning cultural identity - and remain serious, mainly because things like culture and history are not entirely orderly phenomena and their purpose is not to supervise and justify the creation of a specific type ... for instance, a proud Hindu or an Aryan master race. Such an order can be imposed, such a purpose attributed ... by regimes in position to exercise a totalitarian control over knowledge.

Instructions in RSS-run Vidya Bharati School

The Sanskriti Gyan course teaches:

·       The first people to inhabit China were Indians

·       The first people to inhabit Iran were Indians

·       Thousands of opponents of idol worship, the followers of Islam, go to the pilgrimage centre of the Islamic community at the Kaaba to worship the Shivalinga.

Some questions with answers:

Ques: Why is the Babari Masjid not a mosque?

Ans: Because Muslims till today have never offered Namaz there.

Ques: Between 1528 and 1914, how many devotees of Rama laid down their lives to liberate the Rama temple?

Ans: Three lakh fifty thousand Other questions include: 'When did Ramabhakta kar sewaks unfurl the saffron flag on the Shri Ram Janambhoomi' and 'mention the name of the young boys who laid down their life while unfurling the saffron flag'