Although the ruling establishment has justified these acts and dubbed them “necessary measures to reduce the burden on students,” the truth is that they are politically motivated acts. Even a cursory glance at the deleted contents reveals the portions deleted have de-constructed the communal understanding of politics and history endangering the majoritarian plot: the RSS has been long attempting to establish the only truth as determined by itself, a supremacist outfit.
Against the saffronisation of education, voices of protests have been raised and the mainstream media have overlooked these. In fact the dominant, mainstream media has not really analysed the deletions and their impact beyond parroting the establishment’s position.
However, Professor Suhas Palshikar and Professor Yogendra Yadav, the chief advisors of the political science book, sent a letter to the NCERT director and called the changes “arbitrary” acts. After Yadav shared the letter on his Twitter handle on Friday, it drew the attention of a few media houses.
In their letter, they alleged the NCERT authority of “mutilating” textbooks “beyond recognition” and blamed the authority for acting in a “partisan manner”. They were right to argue that such an act by NCERT killed “the spirit of critique and questioning”.
Lodging their strong protest, they have dissociated themselves from the textbooks. Under the supervision of Palshikar and Yadav, political science books for high schools and intermediate levels were prepared in 2006-2007. Suhas Palshikar’s interview to Max Maharashtra explains this process.
While the books have not been “replaced” by the current regime, a large share of the previous contents are now deleted. The fact that the significant changes were made without even consulting the chief advisors is a pointer to the political agenda of Hindutva forces.
It appears that the erasure is a part of the well-thought s t r a t e g y. The Hindutva game has been able to remove almost all those contents that have long challenged their communal politics. Such deletion is justified in the name of “rationalization of syllabus”.
In the name of “reducing” curriculum burden to help students achieve “speedy recovery” post-Corona pandemic, the real agenda is to hollow out the textbooks from their progressive contents and to deny the young mind the right to know the ugly face of communalism.
Look at the irony. The Modi Government has not introduced any new textbooks, yet their intellectual sharpness has been blunted.
The tinkered textbooks and changed syllabus appear to be alive, yet they seem dead in their effect. These textbooks have bodies, yet they have been reduced to soul-less beings. Remember that the process of deleting the contents began a couple of years ago.
2020 deletions: NCERT
During the outbreak of the Corona (Covid-19) pandemic in 2020, the media reported that the chapters on secularism, citizenship, nationalism and federalism from NCERT political science books were deleted. Wasn’t it a shameful act? While the world was fighting the pandemic, the Modi Government was searching for an “opportunity in crisis”.
During those critical days, not only the chapters of textbooks were removed but this was akso accompanied by some policy moves: anti-people farm laws were imposed on the country. From the tampering with NCERT textbooks to enacting anti-labour laws and holding the ground-laying ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the Modi Government has been occupied with fulfilling Sangh’s (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-RSS) agenda.
In the more recent past, this process of mutilation of textbooks has been rapid. Selected contents dealing with Mughal history, Freedom Struggle(s), social movements, democracy, communalism, regional identity and marginalised groups, have been deleted.
The chapters discussing Mughal courts have also been torn off. Lines about Mahatma Gandhi have shamelessly been erased and the name of Maulana Azad, freedom fighter and the first education minister of Independent India, has been dropped without giving any reason.
The long list of deleted items continues:
- A few lines from the political science book that discusses the 2002 Gujarat Violence have been deleted; similarly,
- Content on the report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Gujarat 2002 as well
- Then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s call to the Gujarat government to follow “raj dharma” without discriminating people based on caste and religion, have been removed;
- The reference to Gandhi being disliked by Hindu extremists and the identity of his assassin Nathuram Godse as a Brahmin have been erased as well.
- Even the references to ghettoisation as a result of anti-Muslim Gujarat violence have been deleted from NCERT sociology books; the chapters on the Mughal Court, Central Islamic Lands, the Cold War, and the era of one party dominance discussing the early phase of the Congress party have been torn off.
While the themes of the deleted contents and disciplines may vary, the unifying thread running through all of them is that these contents have brought to the students the complexities of Indian politics and histories and challenged the narrow Hindutva narrative.
Communal forces are fully aware that they can only protect the interest of the elites if they can peddle “their” narration as the “truth”. By capturing educational institutions, these saffron forces have been relentlessly working to replace secular ideas and the egalitarian values of the Constitution with their partisan ideology based on supremacy of historically dominant castes.
Though, the main targets of the supremacist forces appear to be only Muslims, this is not the complete picture. The RSS are not against Muslims alone but against the majority of Indians who are Dalits, Adivasis, backwards, women, and minorities and the poor among the upper castes.
While their direct assault appears to be on Indian Muslims, they are also busy erasing the emancipatory histories of other marginalised communities. While the chapters on Mughals were being removed, the Hindutva forces deliberately projected the deletion as an act of “nationalising” history and “removing” contents of the “foreign aggressors” from the curriculum.
At the same time as Mughal history was erased, however, what was not made public was the fact that a powerful poem that inspires the Dalit Movement, was also removed from the political science book and contents dealing with Sikh history have been removed as well.
Similarly, when a chapter on poet-philosopher Allama Iqbal was removed from the BA Political Science syllabus of Delhi University, the tinkering on a course on Ambedkar was also planned (and implemented) at the same time.
Something else is happening besides this erasure. While the histories of the marginalized communities are being deleted, Hindutva ideologues are also being promoted as “national icons”.
For example, the University of Delhi recently passed a proposal to teach a full course on Hindutva ideology V. D. Savarkar, the person who tendered an apology to the British Raj and divided Indians on religious lines during the Freedom Struggle! Savarkar is likely to be taught ahead of the courses on Gandhi and Ambedkar. These developments are a pointer to the fact that Hindutva forces are not just against minorities but also against the vast section of Indians, diverse and dynamic, especially all marginalised sections.
That is why the battle has to be waged by forging a unity of the oppressed.
Long back philosophers have cautioned that while constructing the past, historians must confront complexities and resist constructing a sanitized version of historical truth.
The Hindutva agendas is the polar opposite of this. Instead of attempting an understanding of the multiple and complex histories of India, saffron forces are desperate to establish only their one truth, by erasing all others. Their conception of India is Brahmanical and narrow, which goes against the spirit of the Constitution and the interests of the majority of Indians, i.e., Dalits, Backwards, Adivasis, women, minorities and Dravidians.
The mutilation of the textbooks should be a big concern for the nation. Such an act attempts to deny young minds the right to know the truth. Critical thinking is being denied and the young minds are injected with the narrative promoting contempt for marginalized communities and minorities.
Such an act also goes against pluralism and communal harmony and it tries to identify India with one culture and one religion. It is high time we waged a unified struggle against the saffronisation of education.
(Dr Abhay Kumar is a Delhi-based journalist. He has taught political science at the NCWEB Centre of Delhi University.)
Related:
Now NCERT removes passages about caste and religious discrimination from social science books
Decimating schools to accommodate Shakhas
Our protest, why we want our names removed from NCERT textbooks: Suhas Palshikar