From the introduction of the National Education Policy 2020 to the revision of university curriculums, India’s academia is voicing great concern about manipulation of learning for political gains.

States like Gujarat have already introduced cow research institutes that talk about traditional uses of cow milk, urine and dung. Universities with strong student union bodies have also been at odds with their own students. Even more worrying is the sudden replacement of Dalit, Adivasi and women’s voices with a greater focus on ‘Hindu culture’ in social science courses.

Within the last three months, Indian syllabus across universities has gone through some controversial changes. Some of these changes are as follows:

Jai Prakash University removes namesake from political science syllabus

Irony abounds as Bihar’s Jai Prakash University (JPU) in Chapra decides to remove socialist leader and freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan from the political science syllabus. Chapra is also the native land of Narayan. Further, other leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, M.N. Roy and others were also removed from the postgraduate course.

However, the exclusion of the “Hero of Quit India Movement” has angered many, not the least of which include Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. According to The Telegraph, student organisations also protested in defiance of the move. The leaders have now been replaced by other freedom fighters like Deendayal Upadhyaya, Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Jyotiba Phule.

Delhi University and exclusion of widely-acclaimed women writers

Teachers from the institution’s English literature department have had no qualms about expressing their ire on the sudden exclusion of writers, Bama, Sukirtharani and Mahasweta Devi. Experts condemned how the enforcement of the Oversight Committee’s recommendation bypassed and violated the democratic process of syllabus-making. Most recently, teachers circulated a statement decrying the exclusion of the texts. Bama and Sukirtharani provided voices of Dalit women from Tamil Nadu through their poems and stories. Meanwhile, Bengali activist Devi’s short story Draupadi talked about the woes of a tribal woman. Groups like the Dalit Intellectual Collective have demanded the reinstatement of the texts along with apologies to the three writers.

JNU introduces ‘jihadi terrorism’ course

Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) introduced a new course on terrorism that describes “jihadi terrorism” as the only “fundamentalist-religious inspired terrorism”. The news sparked criticism from many experts about the ‘communal’ tone to the course. However, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan complimented Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar for sanctioning the course.

Pradhan argued that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a similar course on terrorism and that such courses should be encouraged in academia. However, like the DU incident, Kumar allegedly brought in this course without due consultation of JNU’s academic bodies.

Further, the aforementioned MIT courses take a general overview of recent political science literature to understand why non-state elements such as terrorists resort to violence. The JNU counterpart allegedly follows an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology.

Calcutta HC orders tells VBU students, no protest within 50 mts of campus

Visva Bharati University (VBU) students, demonstrating against the expulsion of three students, were told by the High Court on September 3 not to protest within 50 meters of campus grounds. The students were also told to end their agitation outside the residence of the Vice Chancellor. However, the student body said they will continue their protests elsewhere to support the three students who were punished for participating in a campus protest in January 2020.

According to Newsclick, the VBU administration has changed its attitude since the RSS took over and the “saffronisation” of the institution began.

Communalised approached of the UGC history syllabus

Historians from the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and the JNU alike criticised the University Grants Commission (UGC) in August for its new curriculum framework for undergraduate studies in history. Experts called the new syllabus that moved away from a “historian based approach.”

According to the Times of India, experts condemned the omissions of important historical periods and their replacement with mythology. Further, renowned scholars such Irfan Habib and RS Sharma have been dropped from the curriculum along with literature on Mughals, women and caste.

The first paper of the course, the ‘Idea of Bharat’ also hints at an excessive focus on Hindu culture by talking about Hindu civilisation in the ancient period and completely omitting the medieval period that includes the Mughal empire. Decrying this biased approach, historians have been demanding the total scrapping of the syllabus since its introduction in June.

BHU’s course on Hinduism

The Banaras Hindu University (BHU) will soon launch a Hinduism degree course wherein students will learn about ancient knowledge, tradition, art such as ancient trading activities, architecture, weapons, tools used by great Indian emperors.

The Sanskrit department will plan practical aspects of scriptures, Vedas and ancient inscriptions through mantras. However, the course will be conducted by the Philosophy department. Course-markers claimed that the goal is to attract foreign students interested in studying Hinduism.

However, the course does not extend to other forms of religion in a culturally diverse country like India. In fact, BHU states it will be the first degree course of Hinduism. Earlier, the Himachal University offered a diploma course for the same.

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OC has violated the democratic process of syllabus-making: DU teachers
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The draft syllabus of BA (Hons) English literature was already formed in a most democratic manner prior to the “mala fide” interventions of the Oversight Committee, said multiple department professors of the Delhi University (DU) in a public statement circulated recently.

On September 3, 2021, members of sub-committees responsible for the English syllabus and other professors, circulated an open letter condemning the deletion of Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi, Tamil Dalit writer Bama’s Sangati as well as Sukirtharani’s two poems Debt and My Body. The letter, undersigned by 115 DU teachers, said these texts congeal caste and gender oppression with that of patriarchal state violence.

In it, members said, “The Oversight Committee [OC] single-handedly seeks to destroy a syllabus that has been put together after years of careful discussion and debate, where democratically elected committees have chosen democratically diverse texts that seek to represent all sections of society.”

Responding to the August 26 press release of the institution, teachers said the OC flagrantly violated and bypassed the entire democratic process. They demanded the immediate reinstatement of Mahasweta Devi, Bama and Sukirtharani texts in the Core Women’s Writing Paper of semester 5.

“We also demand that the Oversight Committee should immediately pass the syllabus for Semester 6 (without any changes) rather than starting the process just before the commencement of the next semester,” said the letter.

Teachers spoke about how the department has suffered a lack of official syllabus every semester since July 2019 due to the intervention of the OC. However, this year the DU notified the English Honours syllabus, including all the proposed Discipline Specific Elective papers, 44 days after the fifth semester began. Further, the authorities used the Emergency powers of the Vice Chancellor for an academic matter.

“Since the Delhi University Press Release has been issued “for the information of all concerned” we feel it is imperative for us to put in the public domain that the English Department has repeatedly put on record that it is unwilling to make changes in the Women’s Writing paper,” said the press release.

When the deletion of the concerned texts was first recommended, the English Department, mandated by members of the syllabus committees, wrote to the OC twice to explain academic and pedagogic reasons for the inclusion of the texts. However, far from retaining the texts, the OC allegedly refused to include any story by Mahasweta Devi.

“The HOD’s final agreement was obtained through what we believe is coercion, that too without necessary endorsement from syllabus subcommittees or more importantly, the GBM of English teachers which initiated the democratic syllabus making in the first place, completely negating the claim that the syllabus was finalized after due deliberations with and the recommendations of the Head, Department of English,” the English teachers said.

Teachers also condemned the claims that the finalised syllabus was posted on the DU website on August 26, when in fact the OC was yet to replace Bama and Sukirtharani poems to complete the poetry sub unit. Members also expressed shock at DU’s statement that diversity and inclusion can be done without consideration of religion, caste and creed.

Additionally, the open statement pointed out that the use of terminology like ‘language course’ and the ignorance of what constitutes literary studies is directly responsible for the unacademic decisions taken by the Oversight Committee.

In their statement, teachers asked, “Those [writers] that have been excluded are already members of a historically excluded community. The voices that have been throttled are those of Dalit and non-Dalit women writers writing about Dalit/tribal women. What else could be less inclusive than excluding these powerful Women narratives?”

Teachers emphasised that the DU syllabus includes diverse texts and readings to sensitise students to social issues through stories, poems, plays and essays. The goal is to take students out of their comfort zone and make them think critically. As such, they demanded the immediate inclusion of the aforementioned texts in English literature courses.

Related:

DU should apologise to Bama, Sukirtharani and Mahesweta Devi: Dalit Intellectual Collective
Censorship in learning tarnishes India’s international image: DTF member Dhusiya
From ripples to waves: Experts discuss the power of Dalit literature
51 Reasons to say goodbye to NEP 2020: AIFRTE

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Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), protested in Delhi University against the inclusion of “objectionable material on the RSS” that portrayed them in a bad light. Terming some of the content of the syllabus of history, political science, English and sociology desciplines as “anti-RSS”, ABVP staged a violent protest outside the Vice Regal lodge during the academic council meeting on July 16. Of the things the protesters found “objectionable”, “anti-RSS” and that “portrayed the Indian culture in a bad light” is a short story by Shilpa Paralkar called “Maniben alias Bibijaan” which is based on the Gujarat Riots and papers entitled “Literature in Caste” and “Interrogating Queerness”.

Below is the full text of the short story by Shilpa Paralkar.

Manu stared at his wife of three weeks. “Are you crazy?” Sejal refused to be cowed down. “If you don’t believe me, come home in the afternoon and see for yourself.” Manu smote his forehead and looked heavenwards for help. They were standing at the bus stop. Luckily, at this time of day, there weren’t too many people around.

He spoke clearly and slowly, as if speaking to one of his particularly slow students. “Are you trying to tell me that my mother… Maniben Parekh, who’s 62 years old, who’s been a widow for the last 30 years and who hasn’t stepped out of the house for God knows how many years, is entertaining a man in the house every afternoon?”

“Yes.”

Manu shook his head in disbelief at his wife’s wiles. “Look, Sejal,” he tried to reason with her, “I told you that we would go on a honeymoon as soon as I can afford it.”

“He calls her Bibijaan. Every Thursday afternoon, she makes sheer kurma. And she doesn’t give me any.”

“You mean he’s a…?”

“Yes.”

A triumphant Sejal hefted her bag and leaned more assuredly against the railing. She knew she had her husband’s attention now. Manu, the young and promising secretary of the Gujarat Yuvak Bajrang Dal, looked like he had been whacked across the face with a folded parasol.

“You aren’t joking?” Manu’s voice was weak and hoarse, but hopeful. Sejal shook her head and was about to reveal some more details about his mother’s afternoon escapades when Manu stopped her with a desperate gesture. He looked around for a quiet place to sit down. He needed to think. By himself. Without Sejal’s smirking face crowding his thoughts.

Manu Parekh taught ninth standard elementary physics at the Shishugriha Vidyalaya in Ahmedabad. Not a particularly bright young man, he was nevertheless a reasonably popular teacher. His neatly parted black hair, ascetic features and polite voice never failed to make an impression on the parents of his students. And this was also why they sent their children to him for ‘tuition’, and not to the gruff, pock-marked and impatient Joshi Sir.

Joshi was far more intelligent and a much better teacher, but it was Manu who made the extra 400 rupees every month. Teaching Boyle’s Law and Archimedes’ Principle to coy, simpering 13-year-olds who giggled at everything he said, even as his mother frowned at them from behind the kitchen door.

Manu’s mother frowned at everything. She frowned while lighting the lamp in front of her dead husband’s photograph every evening. She frowned at the milkman who always managed to spill a few drops outside the door. She frowned at the neighbour’s children who ran up and down the common corridor, rattling the shaky window frames with their fingers.

So when Manu walked into the house on the evening of March 3, 2002, carrying a largish brown box, she looked at his feet and frowned.
“Your chappal is broken. Why didn’t you get it mended on the way?”

“Huh? Oh, yes.” Manu looked around for a place to put down the box. His mother, still frowning, cleared away her sewing and watched impassively as her son pulled up the cardboard flaps, lifted out a television set and put it on the bed.

She peered at it for some time and then shuffled into the kitchen to look to her kadi. That night, as she gathered the washing, she noticed that the brown shirt Manu had been wearing that day had a long, black, sooty smear down the left sleeve. It came off on her thumb, and she frowned.

The next day, the milkman did not come. Manu stayed home. So did a lot of people from the chawl. There was much whispering in the corridors, punctuated by bursts of raucous laughter. Young boys would suddenly run out of the chawl and just as suddenly rush back in. A blackboard with some digits had been put up on the ground floor. And the numbers kept rising through the day.

Every now and then, Manu’s friends from the chawl dropped in to see the television set. As his mother watched disapprovingly, they nudged and backslapped Manu, who revelled in their admiration. After Manu had gone out with his friends, his mother finally mustered up enough courage to switch on the TV set.

The screen flickered for a few seconds and then the face of an old Muslim man about the same age as Manu’s mother filled the screen. He was in the traditional Muslim cap and was weeping bitterly.

Manu’s mother frowned and tried to change the channel. But the Muslim fellow wouldn’t go away. A little perturbed, but not too much, Manu’s mother switched the TV off and went into the kitchen to cook. When she switched the TV on again in the afternoon, the Muslim man was still there, crying. She sat down on the bed, puzzled.

After a while, the man stopped weeping and looked up. “I’m thirsty. Can you give me a glass of water?”

Manu’s mother simply stared at him. He burst into tears again, mumbling incoherently about ingrates who took TV sets from his shop but denied him water. Manu’s mother got up, closed the two windows that opened into the corridor and then handed him water in the cup she reserved for Damu, the chawl’s odd-jobs man.

When the man handed back the cup with some water still in it, Manu’s mother pursed her lips. “Drink it up. I don’t like to waste water.”

“Sorry,” the man said with streaming eyes, “I always left some for Nafisa. She insisted on drinking water from my glass… My granddaughter. Nafisa. She was five. I had taken her along to my shop. Ya Allah, will He ever forgive me?” And he started crying again.
Manu’s mother frowned.

“You cry too much for a man.”

“Bibijaan, you would cry too if you had seen what they did. They came with lists and kerosene cans. I begged and pleaded, but they destroyed my TV shop, looted it, then locked Nafisa and me in the back room and set us on fire. I screamed. How I begged, ‘Let my grandchild go. Take everything, but let her go.’ But they only laughed. And Bibijaan, they even fought with each other over who would take the bigger TV sets.”
Manu’s mother was silent. Then she said: “Don’t call me Bibijaan.”

The man wiped his runny nose on his sleeve.

“OK, I won’t.”

In the evening, as usual, Manu came back and watched the news, MTV and a bit of Star Plus.

The next day, after he had left with his friends, Manu’s mother switched on the TV set. The Muslim man was reading the Quran. “Salaam Walekum. Shall I read it out loud?”

Manu’s mother frowned.

“OK, OK,” the man said quickly. “I won’t. Don’t switch it off.”

There was an awkward silence. To fill it up, the man leaned forward and cleared his throat.

“Shall I tell you about my family, then? How my forefathers settled down in Porbandar and started their business…”

Manu’s mother was intrigued. Her parents were also from Porbandar. She had grown up there. She had spent a happy, idyllic fourteen years there before coming to Ahmedabad to stay with Manu’s father’s family. She had never liked Ahmedabad. Not then, not now. These days, standing in her dark kitchen, she found herself thinking more and more about her maternal home in Porbandar. The open courtyard. The crooked neem tree. The swing made from her grandmother’s blue and pink checked godadi.
 
The next day, Manu’s mother found herself telling the Muslim man about Rama, her eldest sister, who had jumped into the well on Dhanteras day. Ever since, Manu’s mother had wept silently on every Diwali. And she had been bitterly disappointed when the only child she ever had turned out to be a son. She had wanted to name him Ram, but the family she had been married into did not believe in listening to daughters-in-law.

When Manu came home that evening, he was in a belligerent mood. “I’m going on a trip with my friends. I don’t know when I shall be back. Could be a few weeks.” His mother merely nodded and went into the kitchen. Manu frowned, looking uncannily like his mother for those few seconds, and then went back to watching Who dares wins.

Over the next few days, Manu’s mother and the Muslim man unravelled a lot of memories together.

“Did I tell you about the time my Abbajaan caught his third wife slipping love notes to the butcher on a mince-stained newspaper?”

“Hey Ram. What a scandalous family yours seems to be. Meat-eaters, and now an adulteress too. But wait till you hear the story about my great-grandfather and the English mem who travelled all alone on a big ship to meet him.”

“This? I got this when I fell down from Uncle’s roof. Uttarayan, of course. Thirteen stitches. And Ammi didn’t talk to her brother for months after that.”

“You know, there was this Muslim family who lived down the lane. Whenever my sister and I walked past their house on our way to the temple, she would unfailingly throw stones over their compound wall.”

“Ya Allah, was that really you? How plump you were — how many litres of ghee did your parents feed you every day? That was Rama, wasn’t it? See, I could tell without you pointing her out.”

“When I was eight, I was determined to marry Gandhiji. I used to write him long letters in my mind.”

“I wanted to be a boxer. But Abbajaan forbade it. And just to make sure I didn’t ever bring up the topic again, he sent me off on Haj. That was the end of my boxing dreams.”

“I wanted my son to be a professor, but he’s become a schoolteacher. I suppose one should be grateful for what one gets.”

“I miss eating sheer kurma. Will you? Really?”

One day, the Muslim man hesitantly broached the topic. “You do know what’s happening outside, don’t you? That your son is part of…” Manu’s mother stiffened and looked away. Her eyes filled with terrible shadows and her fingers plucked at the hem of her sari.

After a long time, she shook her head resolutely. “No, I don’t know.”

“But…”

The Muslim was torn between venting his anger at her deliberate obtuseness and not causing her more pain. Finally, to ease his indecision, he asked her for a glass of water. When he was about to drain the glass, she stopped him with a look.

“Keep some for Nafisa.”

He broke down at that. So did she. Not noisily, like him, but with gentle harrumphing noises. Two sobs, one snort, two sobs, one snort… reminding him of the ponies in Law Garden, where he used to take Nafisa for rides, and the funny, gassy sounds they used to make. He laughed out loud despite his tears.

And decided never to mention it again.

Two other topics were not touched upon. One was Manu’s father, and the other was the Muslim man’s wife.

When Manu returned from wherever it was that he had gone to, he was a little puzzled at his mother’s behaviour. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something was not the same. He struggled to figure out what it could be.

And then he noticed it quite by accident. One evening, he jogged her arm accidentally and spilt some tea on her sari. She got him another cup and sat as usual on the bed, sewing. Idly, he ran his eyes over her sari, trying to trace the tea stains, when it struck him — her sari had little prints over it. He looked closely. They were mango-shaped and pale blue in colour. Not very noticeable, but he had never known her to wear anything other than pure white saris.

Again and again, his eyes returned to his mother’s sari. It wasn’t just the prints. He was sure of it now: something else was different. Puzzled, he looked around their small room, mentally ticking things off. The walls seemed to be OK. Also the cupboard. The bed was the same. The TV was in its place, too. It struck him only after he’d finished his tea. When he had spilt tea on her sari, she hadn’t frowned at all.

Since she was in a good mood, Manu decided this was as good a time as any to tell her. “I’m thinking of getting married.”

“To whom?”

“My shakha pramukh’s niece. Her name is Sejal Patel.” And in anticipation of her frown, he rushed on, “They are Vaishnavas too.”

“Does she work?”

“She helps organise all the shakha meets. Arranges for the pamphlet printing… things like that. But don’t worry, she knows that she will have to help you around the house.”

“And after she finishes the housework, will she go out to work or will she be home all day?”

“Well, she won’t go out unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“So she will be home most of the time?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t the house too small?”

Manu blinked in surprise.

“Too small? But… nothing can be done about that.”

Manu’s mother put aside her sewing and sighed.

“You’re right… nothing can be done about that. Well, I suppose the four of us will just have to manage.”

Manu watched his mother’s frail figure as she slowly walked past him into the kitchen. He hadn’t realised that she was getting so old. Now, she had forgotten how to count. Eventually, she would start forgetting names and what not.

He was suddenly glad that he had decided to get married. Poor thing. She could do with some help.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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