What Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the BJP’s Hindutva icon, said about religious books should completely shake those who think that scriptures are a gospel truth and shouldn’t be criticized, and there is nothing beyond them. Quoted by Narendra Dabholkar, a Pune-based rationalist who was shot dead allegedly by a Hindu fanatic on August 20, 2013, Savarkar had said, “The Vedas, the Avesta, the Bible and the Koran are but man-made tomes and should be studied accordingly…”

Quoted in yet-to-be-released English translation of his original book in Marathi, “The Case for Reason: Understanding the Anti-superstition Movement”, according to Savarkar, “The man who does not want to become just a telephone of religion and wants to possess a mind and intellect of his own, should overcome his belief in the ‘word’” and should “nurture the opinion” opinion that these “respectable ‘Books’” should not be judged on the basis of whether these are “useful” today or not.”

Asking in “the Indian nation” to “close the ‘book’ of the ancient era, forget the supremacy of shruti, smriti and the Puranas, keep them safely away in libraries and enter the age of science”, Savarkar insisted, “Those old tomes are relevant only for telling us what happened in the past. But the science that is objective and experimental alone qualifies as the basis for deciding what is appropriate for today.”

Savarkar continued, “Modernity contains the essence of all that was useful in past experiences; but the shruti-smriti-puranokta cannot have even a speck of modern knowledge. Therefore, we ought to be modern and up-to-date. Whether a thing is good or bad, and whether reform is beneficial or not should be answered, hereafter, only on the basis of one test, that is, whether it is useful or useless today. One should never ask the question whether something is sanctioned by the scriptures.”

Underling the need to take the lesson from what happened in Europe four centuries ago, when the continent “was similarly enslaved by the unalterable supremacy of religion”, Savarkar asserted, “But since the time Europe distanced itself from the Bible and adhered to science, it was freed from the shackles of ‘shruti-smriti-puranokta’ (codes of behaviour, morality, worship stipulated in religious tomes of supernatural origin) and became modern and up-to-date; Europe is now four thousand years ahead of us. It has conquered three continents!” 

The powerful Savarkar view has come to the limelight at a time when Punjab’s Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has proposed a bill, cleared by his Cabinet, which decided, to quote Singh, “on amendments to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to make sacrilege of all religious texts punishable with life imprisonment”, calling it an example of his commitment “to preserve communal harmony in the state.”

Considering Savarkar a Hindu reformer alongside “Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj, Lokahitavadi Agarkar, Dr Ambedkar, Prabodhankar Thakre and Gadge Baba”, all of them from Maharashtra, Dabholkar in his book sought to answer to a question a question being asked about the rationalist organization he headed, “Does Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (ANS) oppose only the Hindu religion?”. He said, an answer to this question is important because there is a deliberate effort at “discouraging ANS activists and spawning prejudice in the minds of people.”
Believed Dabholkar, what is important to understand is that Savarkar, along with these “Hindu reformers”, came to the fore in the course of the “evolution of Hindu religion”, and “dared to criticise superstitions mercilessly.” Thus, according to Dabholkar, “These great men, in fact, cautioned all humanity, not just one religion, to be humane and vigilant, but their teaching inadvertently largely addressed only the Hindus.”

Pointing towards why he quoted from Savarkar, Dabholkar said, this is because of “the ruthless examination of religious books undertaken by Savarkar”, who happened to be “the hero of the independence movement, and more importantly from our viewpoint, eulogised by his followers as the ‘ruler of Hindu hearts’,” adding, his was one of the “pitiless scrutiny of religious books”, illustrating “the long tradition of Hindu social reformers who endeavoured to eradicate superstitions.”

This article was first published in Counterview

The post Indian nation should forget supremacy of Vedas, Puranas: Savarkar (as Quoted by Dabholkar) appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Former DGP, Gujarat, RB Sreekumar, in a letter to Gujarat CM, Anandiben Patel calls for an end to the criteria of born Brahmins alone being appointed as priests in government managed temples in Gujarat..

In a detailed letter addressed to Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, the former DGP, RB Sreekumar has pointed out that by appointing Brahmins only in nearly 80 state-managed temples as staff engaged in ceremonial, ritualistic and religious functions, the government is violating the Indian Constitution and making a mockery of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim of being “A torch bearer to carry on the work and principles of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar”.

Making references to Dr BR Ambedkar’s writings (’Annihilation of Caste’, ’Riddles of Hinduism’, The Untouchables’, ’Buddha and Karl Marx’) the letter points out that, “Ambedkarism is not a set of metaphysical concepts or dogmatic socio-political theories. It is a product of application of lofty Indian spiritual ethos of Buddhism, and liberal western political ideas from the days of the French Revolution (1789), the anti-colonial struggles and upheavals for establishment of representative democracy guaranteeing fundamental human rights, inclusive distributive justice and equitable service delivery to the people by the State”.
 
The letter notes with regret that “those engaged in performing ritualistic worship and ceremonial duties along with temple staff employed for auxiliary services like providing articles of worship, preparation of prasad etc, are appointed to those posts exclusively from certain families from the caste of Brahmins”. What’s more, “Many devotees complain that some priests do not know and comprehend the conceptual, metaphysical and spiritual import of many Vedic Suktas and Slokas from Tantra Samucchaya of Parashurama, chanted during pooja (worship)”.

Citing slokas from the Vedas , Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, Bhagwat Gita and other Hindu scriptures, the letter argues that no one is born a Brahmin but becomes one through acquiring education and culture.

Maintaining that “the present system of illegal monopoly of one caste in temple worship service is obnoxiously obscurantist, besides being repugnant of basic structure of the Indian Constitution and pre eminent Hindu scriptures”, the letter urges the Gujarat chief minister to “constitute a Gujarat Temple Service (GTS), on the pattern of any self-contained government service cadre” and to ensure that “qualified women should also be inducted as priests in GTS”.

 The full text of the former DGP’s letter may be read here.

The post Appointment of Brahmins Only to Government Managed Temples in Gujarat Mocks Ambedkar, Violates Constitution: Former DGP to Gujarat CM appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
During its first tenure, a minority NDA I government, also dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had first tried its experiment with influencing the manner in which Value Education was taught, the way learning in the Social Sciences, especially History, would unfold. Under the previous HRD minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, the first experiments in a narrow and exclusivist rendering of our past had been attempted. Allies in the then NDA I government, including Chandrababu Naidu had protested. Then as now it was the ideological fountaindead of the regime, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that guided these policy moves.
With a far more aggressive NDA II, backed by a 282-seat BJP minority, the present Modi regime is furthering an agenda already attempted during NDA's first stint. This article written at the time in Communalism Combat, therefore assumes relevance today.

Young backs burdened  with heavy texts. Tomes  of homework and pressures of examination that make a mockery of  the meaning of words  like knowledge and learning. Rigid rows in classrooms that are structured to take the bounce out of her step and the shine out of her eyes.The day our daughter joined formal school, her brush strokes that were quite special earlier, mysteriously ceased. It was as if something somewhere had clamped her down, destroyed the desire to splash colour and form onto canvas.

Which of us in our sane minds would ever really question any initiative that seeks to redeem the approach and content of education and learning, re–vitalise our schools as an institution, re–emphasise the curriculum’s commitment to diversity and pluralism of values and actually seek to make this happen through drastically re–fashioned texts and other materials? Especially if aspects of the proposed changes emphasise the child and her world, stress creativity and openness, encourages a process that risks allowing serious challenges to be posed to the rigid and selfish norms set by the adult world.
It is a need crying out loud to be heard.

Large parts of the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework on School Education, released formally by the Vedic physicist, proud swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Union minister for human resources development, Murli Manohar Joshi, contain broad homilies on a value–based, child–centric creative curriculum, in which teacher training and orientation has been emphasised, as also diversity and non–sectarian contents within the curriculum. 

However, the policy contains enough space to legitimise unscientific, irrational half–truths and to establish the undisputed hegemony of Sanskrit and Hindi. It celebrates the inculcation of “patriotism and nationalism” through an emphasis on teaching of values based on “our own philosophical and cultural tradition”. 

Without a scientific and a rich sense of history and vibrant knowledge of social studies, how will the much–needed education in values be achieved? According to the makers of the policy, by reducing, not enhancing, our sense and knowledge of history (!) By reducing “substantially the content and scope of the history and social studies syllabus”, while introducing “education about religions” and value education through religious values. 

Before examining the policy document in detail, a few lines are necessary to tackle the hard–sell of the policy document by the minister himself, even as his cohorts in the HRD ministry make confusing and contradictory declarations of intent.

The document itself has welcome emphasis on a creative and child–centric, culture–specific curriculum, even though other aspects are downright problematic. But accompanying it’s release have been the confident declarations of intent by the faithful swayamsevak Joshi, in two separate musings to the The Pioneer this month. 

The first was in an interview with the editor of the paper for Doordarshan. During his interview, Joshi surprised us all by declaring his firm commitment to tolerance and pluralism. Through another exchange with the same paper, published in The Pioneer on January 14, 2001, Joshi actually exhorted all state governments not to include texts in schools which failed to encourage religious tolerance. To quote, presiding over the general body of the NCERT while the policy was being discussed, Joshi said, “The state governments should see to it that any reference that belittles any religion is not included in school textbooks”.

A case of the devil quoting the scriptures? A sworn soldier of the Hindu Rashtra ideology singing hymns on tolerance, pluralism and against hatred. Why? 
The answer lies only weeks away. The state education ministers’ conference scheduled for January 29, 2001 at which this policy document needs to be approved. Joshi’s statements are cleverly aimed at obfuscating his own ideological position, to avoid, at any cost, a repeat of the humiliation he had to suffer in November 1998. 

Two years ago, the same minister had made a brazen attempt to make sharp policy shifts in the national curriculum policy. The proposed innovations included compulsory rendition of Vande Matram and Saraswati Vandana in schools, thrusting Sanskrit as a compulsory subject nationally. Several state education ministers simply stormed out of the meeting in protest. 

 
The critical question now is whether 28 state education ministers, representing divergent political, ideological and regional positions will call the bluff of Joshi and his clan on January 29. Or will they swallow the document without reading it, choosing to be misled by the reassuring noises on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred being made by the minister.

To avoid a repeat of the humiliation he earlier suffered, Joshi’s recent statements have been addressed to an ideologically sympathetic publication (The Pioneer) and a senior scribe who has let him off lightly without probing whether he says what he means or only means what he says! 

On January 30, 1993, the date of Gandhi’s assassination and weeks after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 (at which incident he was physically present), Joshi, in an interview to the Observer of Business and Politics had said, “There is an increasing realisation in this country that all religious dispensations should accept Hinduism as a geo–cultural concept and not just as a way of worship
or a purely ritualistic religion. The basic question now is of Hindutva”. 

The first poser to Joshi. Does this statement reflect your notion of pluralism and tolerance or have your views undergone a drastic change? Several more posers could be added, especially after his heart–warming declarations on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred and bias. 

For example:
Does the RSS worldview, that has nurtured you ideologically and politically and to which you still belong, support notions of tolerance, pluralism and abjure hatred and violence?

Or, with your apparent shift to reason and dialogue, Mr Joshi, have you parted ways with the RSS, an organisation who’s leading spokespersons continue to speak the language of the bully, threatening violence from a position of hegemony and superiority?

Where do you, Mr Joshi, stand on the content and quality of Gujarat state social studies text-books (Std V to X), which far from speaking the language of pluralism, reflect the same hegemonic crudity. They equate the Indian with the ‘caste Hindu’. There are appalling assumptions and statements on issues of caste (“The Varna system was the most glorious gift to mankind”, “Muslims, Christians and Parsees are foreigners”, etc; see CC October 1999) in these texts. 

What would you, Mr. Joshi, have to say about compulsory Sanskrit teaching being introduced in Gujarat? About compelling Sanskrit teachers from all schools in the state to attend residential camps conducted by the Deendayal Institute (An integral part of the sangh parivar)?

More specifically, what would you and your friends have to say, Mr. Joshi, about the history that is taught in thousands of RSS affiliated schools spread over the length and breadth of the country. For example:

• “Arabs were barbarians who advanced to convert other people to their religion. Wherever they went, they had a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Houses of prayer were destroyed. Mercy and justice were unknown to them… Innumerable Hindus were forcibly made  Musalmans on the point of the sword. The struggle for freedom became a religious war. We never allowed foreign rulers to settle down but we could not reconvert our separated brethren to Hinduism.” (Gaurav Gatha, published by RSS Shishu Mandirs for Std IV).
• “Lakhs of foreigners came during these thousands of years… but they all suffered humiliating defeat. There were some whom we digested. When we were disunited, we failed to recognise who were our own and who were foreigners, then we were not able to digest them. We were not able even to digest those who for some compulsion had separated from us. Mughals, Pathans and Christians are today some of these people”. (Itihaas Ga Raha Hai, for Class 5 in Shishu Mandir schools).
• “Islam spread in India solely by way of the sword. The Muslims came to India with the sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Numberless Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam on the point of the sword. This struggle for freedom became a religious war, Numerous sacrifices were made in the name of religion. We went on winning one battle after another. We did not let the foreign rulers settle down to rule, but we were not able to reconvert the separated brothers to Hinduism’ (Itihaas Gaa Raha Hai).

Does Mr Joshi describe these RSS texts as conveying the message of tolerance? Is there no generation of hatred here?

• “The Kshatriyas, followers of the Vedic religion, were feeling frustrated. The ruler of Magadha was a Buddhist. So he did not come forward to fight. But then was the country enslaved. Did the enemy become victorious in the birthplace of Bhagwan Rama? No, no”. (Gaurav Gatha p. 31).
• “With the finds of bones of horses, their toys and yajna altars, scholars are beginning to believe that the people of the Harappa and Vedic civilisation were the same”. (High School Itihaas Bhaag 1, p. 43, history textbook for secondary schools, Government of U. P. revised in 1992 to suit the communal interpretations of Indian history. This book deals with the history of India from pre–historic times to 1526.) 
• Aryan culture is the nucleus of Indian culture, and the Aryans were an indigenous race. But about the Aryans who were the builders of Bharatiya Sanskriti in Bharat and creators of the Vedas, this view is gaining strength among the scholars in the country that India itself was the original home of the Aryans.” (P. 48, Itihaas Bhaag 1). 
• Is this pluralism or hegemony, Mr Joshi?
• “Ashoka advocated ahimsa. Every kind of violence came to be considered a crime. Even hunting, sacrifices in yajnas and use of arms began to be considered bad. It had a bad effect on the army. Cowardice slowly spread throughout the kingdom. The state bore the burden of providing food to the Buddhist monks. Therefore people began to become monks. Victory through arms began to be viewed as bad, Soldiers guarding the borders became demoralised”. (Gaurav Gatha p. 30).

Is this not a deprecation of non-violence that suggests restraint and dialogue?

Joshi and all his faithful appointees to key posts in the HRD ministry have been, and are, proud members of the RSS, an organisation that controls the single largest education enterprise in the country. Through the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, the RSS runs anywhere between 14,000–20,000 Saraswati Mandirs and Shishu Mandirs all over the country. 

Of these, it is reported that as many as 5,000 are recognised by and affiliated to either the CBSE or state education boards, most of them in states with BJP governments in power! However, there are also hundreds of RSS schools using textbooks with a completely motivated and vicious syllabus functioning in states with so-called ‘secular’ political dispensations.

In stark and revealing contrast to the hold that the RSS has over education, the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) itself has a total of 5,391 schools affiliated to it (805 Kendriya Vidyalayas, 1,400 government schools, 2,817 independent schools and 369 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas). 

The RSS–affiliated Vidya Bharati organisation has an overwhelming 18 lakh pupils under its tutelage, annually, and employs 80,000 teachers across all states, except for Mizoram. It also controls 60 colleges of graduate and postgraduate studies and 25 other institutions of higher learning. 

If the example of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are anything to go by, the assumption of political power by the BJP has made it possible for this party to use its political clout to promote its worldview of India’s past, present and future, on who and what constitute Indians and Indianness and what constitutes Indian culture.

The changes made in the textbooks used in the state–run schools in Gujarat, UP and even other states are stark, worrying, reflections of this trend. We also know that the VHP, has been busy setting up it’s own brand of schools, encouraged by the political patronage of the BJP. It is the same outfit that has proudly led the demolition of the Babri Masjid and violent campaigns on the life and property of Indian citizens. Today, it endorses the outrageous idea of disenfranchisement of Indian religious minorities. 

We also have some idea of the notions of history, past and present, transmitted by these outfits and their leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi, through the spoken word and in writing – pamphlets, books and school textbooks perpetuating the RSS worldview that incidentally challenges and violates the Indian Constitution. These text–books are in circulation and use in a staggeringly large number of schools, influencing no doubt the outlook of a significant section of its 18,000,000 students annually. 

The 1993 report of a high–powered NCERT Committee that investigated both RSS schools and madrassas “identified textbooks brought out by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir Prakashan and the Markazi Maktaba Islami as representative of historical distortions”. These text–books continue to be used by these outfits as if an acquiescent government is in power.
If push came to shove, there would be a few last questions for Mr Joshi.

Why, as a BJP minister, controlling the HRD ministry, have you, Mr Joshi, not used your persuasion powers and commitment to pluralism and tolerance to de–recognise and revise such poorly authored texts whose concern seems as much to be with the perpetuation of irrationality and a non–questioning mind as with the subjugation and humiliation of sections of our population through hate generation and the perpetuation of derogatory images? 

The 1993 report of a high-powered NCERT Committee that investigated both RSS schools and madrassas “identified textbooks brought out by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir Prakashan and the Markazi Maktaba Islami as representative of historical distortions”.
 
This is not simply an academic argument for quality, reason, balance and free enquiry. It is to show the link between hate thoughts lodged in the minds of the young through text–books and hate speech by exponents of a worldview that espouses intolerance and violence that results in blood–letting on the streets as we have all been witness to.

What goes into textbooks taught in schools run by outfits like the RSS and VHP finds repeated reflection in the sense of perverted history that drives the public declarations of people like Joshi and Advani at a more benign level and those like Sudarshan and Seshadri, Thackeray, Singhal and Vinay Katiyar at the crude level. These perversions become an important vehicle to raise passions that spill into violence. Or is it the other way around?

For example:

Ø “This is yet another epic war — between Hindus and anti–Hindus, a veritable Mahabharat in which sometimes Abhimanyu will fall, sometimes Ghatotkacha, or it may be Jayadratha’s turn yet another day. (KS Sudarshan, newly appointed RSS chief in the Organiser, April 2000)

Ø “Christianity is not a religion, it is a devious conspiracy to serve colonial interests. You dream of building a church in every village and taking a Bible to every house. The Bajrang Dal activists will destroy your dream completely.” (Ashok Singhal, VHP working president, addressing a BD camp at Vrindavan aimed at setting up a special people’s security force (Prateyak Suraksha Samiti), in the Frontline).

Ø “Muslims can never be trusted. They are like snakes, you can never know when they can turn around and bite you”. (Bal Thackeray, SS chief lashing out at top film stars, Khans and Mohammed Azharuddin in The Asian Age, June 2000)

Ø ‘There can never be harmony or peace until the Koran is drastically revised.” (Vinay Katiyar, chief of Bajrang Dal, Lucknow, July 1999)

Ø “I reiterate my commitment towards the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the day a BJP government is installed at Delhi, we will remove all hurdles for temple construction”. (LK Advani, The Asian Age, July 4, 1997). 

Is the lip service being paid to pluralism, tolerance and against hatred a mere waiting game until an absolute power can be realised by the BJP? Is it too farfetched, then, to suspect a sinister plan to erode public discourse as much as educational curricula with untested, historically problematic notions of past events? 

A case of the devil quoting the scriptures? A sworn soldier of the Hindu Rashtra ideology singing hymns on tolerance, pluralism and against hatred. Why? 

It is within this wider scenario that the New Curriculum framework must be situated. A policy document that emphasises education about religion, stresses value education as that which obtains exclusively from religious frameworks, drastically reduces the quantum of social studies/sciences and history syllabi and accords a disproportionate and compulsory place to Sanskrit.

The critical question now is whether 28 state education ministers, representing divergent political, ideological and regional positions will call the bluff of Joshi and his clan on January 29. Or will they swallow the document without reading it, choosing to be misled by the reassuring noises on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred being made by the minister.
In November 1999, we were told that: 

Ø “The content of education from the primary level to the higher education stage should be “Indianised, nationalised and spiritualised”; 

Ø “Courses  at all levels, including vocational training courses, should  incorporate the essentials of Indian culture”;

Ø “Sanskrit should be made obligatory for students between classes III and X”. 

Ø “Moral and spiritual education” should be introduced that would inculcate “desirable social and national values.” 

Today the new and finalised policy document on education says: 

Ø There should be an emphasis on “Education about religions”  (p vii) and “values with an emphasis on religious values”. The “Inherent values of all religions to be taught at all stages of school education”;

Ø “A profound sense of patriotism and nationalism tempered with the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (being one of the world/earth family) must be infused into the students”;

Ø There should be an emphasis on our “own philosophical cultural and sociological tradition” and “an indigenous Indian curriculum that would celebrate the ideas of the country’s thinkers such as Sri Aurobindo,
Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Mahatma Phule, Gandhi, Tagore, Zakir Hussain, Krishnamurti and Gijubhai Badeka.” (Ambedkar and Periyar are given the go–by, as are so many others!)

Ø There is a clear–cut promotion of Sanskrit (2.8.3) and Hindi (2.8.4) and their compulsory inclusion within the syllabus all over the country at the primary stage. Clear pointers to attempted cultural hegemony as also to the backward looking vision that guides this sectarian worldview.

Ø “Sanskrit has a special claim on the national system of education because it
l Has consistently been used in India for thousands of years and is still inextricably linked with the life, rituals, ceremonies and festivals of vast Indian masses; (it was just such an emphasis on Sanskrit hegemony that had been angrily resisted by representatives of so many states in India, especially the South, in 1999);

l Contains a great store of knowledge and wisdom that needs to be revived, reformulated and enriched with whatever is the best in modern disciplines of knowledge;

l Has the universal appeal all over the country;

l Has very close structural, lexical, and semantic relationship with Hindi and most other regional languages of India which makes the learning of these languages easier and better; and

l Has been internationally accepted as the most scientifically structured language and is increasingly being acknowledged as the best suited language for computer use”.

For all these reasons, the new policy states that it is important to provide for and encourage the study of Sanskrit: “It may be introduced as part of a composite course of Hindi and the regional languages as mother tongue at a suitable point of the primary or upper primary stage…Open school courses for Sanskrit may also be designed for learners at all levels”.

The New Curriculum Framework accords Hindi a special place, too, on grounds that “the Indian Constitution has given it the place of the Official Language of the Union…it is necessary that courses in Hindi are suitable for opening up channels of integral communication in all parts of India.”

Incidentally, even as Joshi appears before us through the pages of The Pioneer in a liberal and tolerant garb, the forked tongues within the wider ideological family cannot be so easily silenced. The formal release of the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework on School Education in December 2000 has been adequately caricatured by the secretary of the HRD ministry, MK Kaw. In his article in the official NCERT journal on Value Education, titled ‘Education in Human Values, released at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium barely a week after the policy document, on December 20, 2000, Kaw tells us that, “The greatest damage to our intellectual freedom has been caused by traditional religions especially by those which have a single holy book from which they derive their authority!” 

There is more. Sister bodies under the control of the HRD ministry that include the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) and even the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in varying degrees and through different actions, have had their representatives once again publicly declare their allegiance to the parent organisation to which Joshi, Vajpayee and Advani belong – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

In the same month (December 2000), the director of the ICHR made a declaration that embarrassed even the body he heads. He stated that since the Babri Masjid had been an unused structure and had no religious significance, the site should be handed over to the Hindus on the premise that as “the location of Rama’s birthplace cannot be changed, the temple cannot be moved.” 

The same ICHR has also been embroiled in a serious controversy for withdrawing mid–way through publication a volume, Towards Freedom, authored by two renowned historians, Sumit Sarkar and KN Panikkar, eighteen months earlier. 

The reasons are not far to seek. Among other things, the book offered incontrovertible evidence (including British intelligence records) to show that the RSS was not merely a non-participant in the Indian freedom struggle; it actually collaborated with the colonial powers! 

The director general of the CSIR, RA Mashelkar was felicitated by the RSS’ Rashtriya Suraksha Mahashivir last month. This created some public discomfort for the ministry because it was more evidence (if any were needed) of the growing influence of swayamsevak Joshi’s influence over the orientation of the CSIR. 

A girl from a Dalit neighbourhood, still bitterly experiencing the daily humiliations and segregation based on caste that legitimises a cruel concept like sprush-asprush (pure and impure) and “so impure as to be untouchable. A tribal boy who plays his drums and knows his icons and idols but would like to see them reflected in the social studies syllabus. A Muslim boy who has witnessed brute violence and lost his father to hatred. A Muslim girl who is compelled to drop out of education at eleven years of age because puberty is around the corner and she sits in a mixed classroom.

These few examples reflect events of the past month or so. To enumerate all the actions of this ministry of the NDA government since it took charge in 1998, the list would spill into several pages.

The state ministers of education need to keep these myriad factors in mind when they respond to the new curriculum policy document. What, in a nutshell, will the new NCERT text books, written in pursuance of this new worldview, contain? 

There is good reason to fear that such an approach, approved by the national education policy, will legitimise and stress on religious education over scientific and historical inquiry. It will, in fact, serve to legitimise the content of texts circulated by such backward looking outfits like the RSS and Markazi Maktaba Islami, as they will now not even be required to meet the criterion of neutrality, scientific temper and frank inquiry. 

What notions of values would be contained, what understandings of faiths, what extrapolations to the ideal of patriotism, nationalism and national unity would we find within the new textbooks, then? 

We have been mute witness to the Hate and Bully projects in public life in the past few decades, projects that have misused religion and religious labels to perpetuate threats and strong arm tactics against sections of our own population. All these actions have amounted to contempt for the law of the land. A law based on the Indian Constitution that above all enshrines a rich and pragmatic concept of equality to all, that makes matters of faith answerable to broader, deeper and more universal concepts of the individual and basic rights of the citizen. The rights of an individual Indian citizen to dissent, to free speech, to life and equality et al are inalienable. It cannot be taken away by group rights, religious rights, community and caste rights.

The brazen attempt to replace history and social studies within the curricular framework with religion-based values is also aimed at the destruction of a sense of historical search and belonging, a journey that is the source of empowerment to sections that may be grossly disempowered and disadvantaged today. Why this overpowering desire to wipe out or snatch away a sense of history from the vast majority of our people?

To gain control over the mind of a large section of the people you need a clean slate, uncluttered by contradictory facts and emotion, a situation that enables you to brainwash through unreason, with ease. Such a clean slate is vital for control over the fortunes, aspirations and dreams of large sections of the population who are then made to believe what they are told by the controlling few — that there exist no inequities, no schisms, no oppressions.

How will they deal with questions of genuine inquiry, issues of the history of science and technology, the paths that ideas, innovations, faiths and convictions took and travelled? Will they be able to release historical knowledge and inquiry from the shackles of identity, caste and class control? Or would history and its transmission get mired with and influenced even more than it is now by a narrow political worldview? 

A girl from a Dalit neighbourhood, still bitterly experiencing the daily humiliations and segregation based on caste that legitimises a cruel concept like sprush-asprush (pure and impure) and “so impure as to be untouchable. A tribal boy who plays his drums and knows his icons and idols but would like to see them reflected in the social studies syllabus. A Muslim boy who has witnessed brute violence and lost his father to hatred. A Muslim girl who is compelled to drop out of education at eleven years of age because puberty is around the corner and she sits in a mixed classroom. 

These are the multi-hued emotions of our children, our present and our future. To enthuse them into learning processes, these processes must find a resonance within each of them.

How will our textbooks tackle the questions of internal shades and hues and conflict? How will they address the issues dividing populations within India and South Asia? How will the books look at the issue of motivated, pre–mediated history writing and generation that stifles the critical and questioning mind? 

Uninformed and non–creative interpretations of events and periods in history writing have deteriorated, in past decades, into outright hate–writing inculcating prejudices, limiting our knowledge and understanding of the past. Instead of surging forward towards unshackling knowledge from myriad pre–conceptions by deepening our knowledge of the subject, the current political dispensation appears determined to confine learning to religion–based values, not free inquiry. The resultant situation can then be used to unleash half–truths, suspicions and finally hatred and divisions.

The suppression of history and historical inquiry, then, has a dual purpose. Wiping the slate clean creates a tailor–made situation, fertile ground for nasty manipulations, for colourfully woven tales of woes that are made to pass as history with no concessions to historical veracity and genuine inquiry. 

We are now catapulted into an explosive every day scenario of emotion–driven, non–scientific visions of the past. These half–baked, explosive notions are not based on knowledge or history, but are made to pass as such. They are manipulations and distortions that freely allow for hate-filled half–truths to fill the curriculum and resonate in the public sphere.

We have then entered the realm of darkness, of suspicion, of constructs of hitherto non–existent states of historical trauma and wrong–doing; states of being that easily raise passions, that can even wield trishuls and swords. Such states of being have in recent times broken real historical ground with distortions that have justified crimes of crude passion leading to the destruction of lives and homes, property and places of worship. All justified by abusing history.

Hysterical and narrow notions of patriotism in this era of darkness can also be used to justify nuclear war and the creation of weapons for mass destruction. Shameful acts like female foeticide, infanticide and caste and community driven incidents of sexual violence can all be traced back to the misdeeds of ‘foreign marauders’ of over nine hundred years ago. In this era of darkness, we loose forever the ability to search deep within ourselves for solutions to shameful facts of continuing discrimination, of violent humiliations, because all of this would mean pinning the blame, even accepting responsibility. 

The finger of blame would then be turned firmly on us and us alone. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2001. Year 8, No. 65, Cover Story

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Source: shanidev.com Police on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, foiled the women march toward Shani Shingnapur temple and detained many activists including Bhumata …

Six busloads of members of the Pune-based, Bhumata Brigade who sought entry into the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, to secure for themselves a right enshrined in the Indian Constitution – that there shall be no discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth were arrested this Republic Day. Trupti Desai, a leader of the brigade had announced that, if they were refused entry, they would persist with their programme, albeit unconventionally, in a helicopter descent. But the police also thwarted this. Earlier, the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS) had issued a call for the mobilisation of Hindu men to ‘protect’ religious tradition.
 
The Bhumata Brigade, which came into being in 2007, has taken up a number of other issues. News reports detail its support for the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement, farmers’ agitations on crop-loans, the Ajit Bank's multi-crore scam, etc. On January 11, rattled by its announcement to take on the temple, the Shani Shingnapur Temple Trust appointed a woman, Anita Shetye, as its chairperson, and another woman, Shalini Lande, on its board of trustees. 
 
The storm the Bhumata Brigade has kicked up over the entry of women to this temple is matched, perhaps in a more muted fashion in the legal arena, with discussions of the right of women to two other places of worship – the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala and the Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai. In all these places, women of these faiths are demanding the Constitutional right to practice their faith and worship alongside men, without any discrimination.
 
Last year, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court to demand the right to enter the mazaar of the Haji Ali dargah and the Indian Young Lawyers' Association (IYLA) filed a writ petition to seek the entry of pre-menopausal women and post-puberty girls into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
 
In both petitions, significant aspects of constitutional rights are at stake, though the trustees of these places of worship have proffered different reasons for restricting or banning the entry of women. While Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits any discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, the IYLA petition has challenged the ban under Art 14 (equality before law) and Arts 25 and 26 (freedom of religion) of the Constitution. The ban on the (Sabarimala) temple itself is enforced under rule 3 (b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1965.

There has been much debate on the myths and the reasoning behind the restrictions (including the arduous trek to the shrine through forests that used to be populated by wild animals) but the Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the Samarimala Temple, maintains that the restriction is necessary because the presence of women of reproductive age would disturb the celibate god. (See https://sabrangindia.in/article/unholy-and-unconstitutional-ban-women-sabarimala)

The Shani temple does not specify any clear reason why women are not allowed into what is called the ‘foundation’ – the raised granite wall which encloses the idol. Pictures and information of the Shani idol on the website of the temple (a tri-lingual one – available in English, Marathi and Hindi) clear show the foundation was added later on the donation of a local trader. Interestingly, the HJS site says that prohibitions on women is a matter of ‘spiritual science’ and quotes the Sanatan Prabhat to say that a movement must be started to protect religious traditions!

The Haji Ali DargahTrust proffers more prosaic administrative reasons. Here, women were allowed till as recently as 2012, when a decision was taken to prohibit the entry of women on grounds of their safety and security!

While the hearings on the Sabarimala temple entry are on, the Bombay High Court has decided to wait for the Supreme Court’s decision before giving its verdict on the BMMA’s petition on entry into the Haji Ali dargah.

      
 
For several years now, women have been trying to push the ossified frameworks that govern religious practice. There are instances of daughters of the Hindu faith who performed the funeral rites of their parents (the latest being Mallika Sarabai who lit the funeral pyre of her mother and celebrated danseuse Mrinalini Sarabai just last week). There are less publicised instances of Hindu widows who participate in the weddings of their children. Hindu women have chanted the Vedas and other Sanskrit shlokas and some of them also conduct religious ceremonies.
 
Hitherto, these attempts to push the envelope were seen as private acts that impacted family or friends and the immediate community. Even when women worshippers tried to enter the Sabarimala shrine or the Shani Shingnapur temple, they were seen as stray rebels or worshippers who entered the forbidden area by mistake and elaborate purification rituals were undertaken to ‘restore’ the sanctity of the shrines.
 
But now, it is clear these efforts have entered the more public realm of organised religion, especially with trusts that command a lot of influence and manage substantial funds. The trusts are accountable to the laws of the land and do have state and political patronage, either in the form of long leases on the land they occupy or in the composition of and appointment of the trustees and administration.
 
Granted, the struggle to seek their rightful place before their gods is a fundamental expression of the faith of these women. But the edifice of religious practice is not merely a question of faith. When women confront these structures, as they have done and are continuing to do in matters of personal law, matrimony, maintenance, child custody, property and inheritance rights, they have had to wage protracted battles to secure the most minimal of rights. The restrictions on the entry of women into places of worship are only one manifestation of the patriarchy and misogyny that marks much of organized religion. Much more than mere tradition is at stake here.
 
 (This writer is a senior and independent journalist)
 

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In this context, it would be educative to look closely at the prescribed textbooks for history and social studies teaching in Gujarat, with virtually no alterations since 1991, many books prescribed by the ICSE national board among others, and even some college level texts that contain these problematic formulations. 

One of the recurring myths about Indian culture, perpetuated ad noseum is that it is one of the most non-violent, peace-loving and tolerant

The state syllabus detailed in the texts being currently used by the Gujarat state board, outlines clearly for the teacher and student of history that when the author(s) of the text-book write about India they use the term for the modern nation as synonymous with “Hindu”. The student is instructed that the idea of studying social studies is to develop a true understanding of ancient India. The political implications of this assumption are significant and dangerous, because, immediately for the history learner paradigms have been drawn. It is only within these that adjustments are subsequently made for ‘synthesis’ or ‘syncretism.’

The syllabus for the standard five social studies text printed by the Gujarat State board, outlines the objective of the syllabus that has been laid out for the ten-year-old child:

‘Towards understanding the Indian Cultural heritage in a proper perspective’. 
This ‘perspective’, as described below in detail, outlines erroneously that the ancient age begins with Vedic times.It becomes clear from this introductory social studies text for the fifth standard child that no perspective of world ancient civilisations is given through the syllabus; that the desire is not just to begin and end with India, but ancient India has been made synonymous with the Vedic; and that values like ‘respectable status of women in Indian culture’ are rooted in the characters depicted through stories taken from the Vedas. There is no attempt to develop any sense of historical enquiry that could lead to a student understanding the quality of life and civilisations that existed pre-Vedas; the exchanges that took place between ancient peoples through river and sea routes etc. 

Not only is this kind of social studies self-limiting and restrictive, it is an approach that is set to stifle free thinking and enquiry. Here is how the objective of the syllabus is outlined: 

Ø  Ancient Age (From Vedic times to  Harshavardhan)

Ø  Is introduced to Vedic literature which is an expression of Indian Culture.

Ø    Knows about the respectable status of women in Indian culture. 

Ø Gets acquainted with the basic truths of life against a backdrop of Indian Culture.

Ø  Learns for himself the truth; that in the context of Indian culture a person acquires a high status not by right of birth but by merit.

Ø   Knows about how in the Indian Cultural context the rules were oriented towards the subjects. 
Ø   Imbibes the basic values of Indian Culture expressed by the narratives of the epics, Ramayana, Mahabharat, and by the main characters in it. 

Ø   For instance, the importance of 1) The purity of domestic life 2) Steadfastness in adhering to truth even at the cost of suffering.

Ø   Moulds the character which makes one abide by ones duty when there is a conflict between personal relationship and a sense of duty. 
(Social Studies text, Gujarat state board, Std. V)

Apart from the stated objective of portraying ancient Indian culture as synonymous with the Vedas, the Gujarat board texts also proceed to depict Indian culture as inherently superior to any other.

In the chapter titled, ‘The Cultural Heritage of Ancient India’, the child is told: “Ancient Indian history covers a period of about four thousand years. It can be divided into the following periods: The Indus valley civilisation period, the Vedic period, the post-Vedic period, the Epic period, the Age of Buddha and Mahavir, the Maurya and the Post-Gupta periods and the Early Muslim period.” The same text goes on to assert that from the beginning of the Indus valley period to the ‘end of Hindu supremacy’ the contribution of Indian civilisation was unique, implying that, thereafter, with the ‘Muslim period’ the contribution could not be measured in a similar fashion. 

“Right from the coming of the Aryans to India (around 2000 B.C.) to the end of the Hindu supremacy (around 1200 A.D.). The Indian civilisation made a unique contribution in many different fields of life, a contribution which includes certain high moral values. It is because of this reason that the ancient civilisation of India has survived today in the form of Indian culture while other ancient civilisation like those of Egypt, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and China have disappeared from the world. These countries do not have the continuity of culture, which is found in the Indian culture.”

The same, Std. IX text, that selectively excludes historical details like the Shaivite-Buddhist conflicts, oppression of women and the shudras, the state of Dalits even today, is however emphatic that “the inherent peace and tolerance of Indian culture” is one of its characteristics. This is one of the recurring myths that have been repeated ad nauseum about India and her ancient culture, the fact that it is “the most non-violent, peace-loving and tolerant”, a myth that is essential if the ‘Hindu’ is to be pitted as the quintessential Indian, a myth that sits well with the ‘others’  being labelled both ‘invaders’ and ‘foreigners’. It is also a myth that seeks to justify present-day violence against the country’s minorities, seeking justification for this in ‘the wrongs of yore.’

In a section titled ‘Tolerance and urge for peace’, the fourteen- year- old is told: “Tolerance and a strong desire for peace are two distinct features of Indian culture. Brahminism with its two main functions namely Shaivism and Vishnavism. Buddhism and Jainism were the main faith followed in ancient India. These faiths adopted a policy of tolerance towards one another. For examples the Satwahanas and the Guptas were followers of Brahminism. But they showed tolerance towards Buddhism and Jainism and gave financial grants to their places of worship.          

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 1999, Anniversary Issue (6th) Year 7  No. 52, Cover Story 6

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