- EDUCATION, SECULARISM AND HUMAN VALUES, Asghar Ali Engineer, Secular Perspective, 01/10/2004, N00, /eldoc/n00_/01oct04sep1.html

Education Committees Textbooks

- Textbook Boards Review Committee, University News, 05/12/1994, /eldoc/n00_/05dec94uns1.pdf

Edu committes texts

- Panel with statutory powers to screen textbooks, The Statesman, 27/10/94, /eldoc/n00_/27oct94s1.pdf

Text Books
Differing with most authorities on ancient history, the NCERT textbook describes the Harappan civilization as "Harappan", "Indus", or  "Indus-Saraswati" Civilization. "Apart from a few known pro-RSS historians, nobody accepts the theory of the Indus-Saraswati civilization,"remarks Professor Mukherjee.

Moreover, the textbook describes the area of the Harappan civilization as 12 times that of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations combined. However, renowned historian Professor Irfan Habib says that as per internationally accepted history, "It was less than double the area of Mesopotamia."In dealing with the economic life of the Vedic civilization, the reference to the cow being the most important animal is in bold letters. Also in bold letters is the punishment for injuring or killing a cow: by expulsion from the kingdom or the death penalty.

An apex body of historians, Aligarh Historians Society, has accused the books of being casteist in approach. "The textbooks black out the whole question of Dravidian participation in the Indus Civilization and of Dravidian influences on both Vedic life and later, on Sanskrit. Then, a neutral stance has been taken in the books over the caste system. It would appear as if  Dalits were never a part of our society, and that the shudras never received any ill-treatment," states Professor Habib, who heads the society.
"The new NCERT textbooks are not about rewriting or updating history but communalising history.  The authors are not using new methodologies but  going by 19th century interpretations of history, where religion played a very important role," comments Professor Bipin Chandra, one of India's best-known historians.

- Who killed Mahatma Gandhi?, Basharat Peer, 08/11/2002 N00 /eldoc/n00_/history-books.htm

Textbooks Education and the Law

The first is the issue of secularism that Article 28 specifically prohibits the Government from teaching religious education through its schools or those maintained by it or allowing the compulsory teaching of religion by grant-aided schools. What the Government cannot do directly, it cannot do indirectly through its Ministry or the NCERT (the National Council of Educational Research and Training).
The second is the issue of federalism. Education is a Union and State responsibility. State schools and schools in States are to teach these new curricula, syllabi and textbooks. If the Union launches a new education policy, should the States be consulted? How? Through the NCERT — a private body with a public profile — from whose meeting State representatives walked out? Or through the official medium of consultation CABE (the Central Advisory Board of Education) —which has existed for this purpose since 1926 at least 1935 but not recently been re-constituted? Before the Sarkaria Commission (1988), most States wanted CABE as a permanent mechanism of consultation between the Union and the States. This federal issue is made further significant because Justice Cheema dissented in favour of the essentiality of CABE as a mechanism of federal consultation. On this, the majority judges (Justices M.B. Shah and Dharmadhikari) did not agree. Now, where has the Court gone wrong? The one obvious area where the Court has gone wrong is not just that it has placed the NCERT in the position of an official body but treated it as a substitute for CABE and federal consultation. This is wholly contrary to its own decision in the NCERT case (1991, 4 SCC 578) in which the Council successfully argued that it was a private body and not state within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution and in respect of fundamental rights. How, then, did the Supreme Court ignore its own the NCERT decision of 1991? It does not matter if the 1991 decision was of two judges? Surely, the NCERT knew its defence of 1991. It should have told the Court that it was a private body. Instead, it went along with the Court making the NCERT the official federal basis of all educational change.

In fact, the Court said: "There is nothing in either the Constitution of the NCERT or in any Rule, Regulation or Executive Order to suggest that the NCERT is structurally `subordinate' or inferior to any other body in the field." This is amazing. A body declared to be private in 1991 has been declared to co-equal if not superior to all in 2002 without the earlier ruling being examined. For this reason alone, this judgment of 2002 is wrong and proceeds on the wrong fundamental assumption.

- The textbook case, Rajeev Dhavan, The Hindu, 04/10/2002, N00 /eldoc/n00_/textbook_case.html
 

Karnataka is one of the States which has strongly opposed the new curriculum framework. Yet it is apparent that the State has paid little heed to the situation in its own backyard. Although the textbooks conforming to the new guidelines are still being prepared, the books that are already in classroom use appear to conform fully to the letter and spirit of the very curriculum framework that the State government has so stridently criticised in public forums. Schoolchildren in Karnataka enter the exciting world of knowledge and learning armed with books that are replete with examples of communal bias, not to mention inexcusable errors of fact. Notions of nationalism which invoke a glorious though lost past of Hindu achievement and supremacy underpin many a chapter in the textbooks.

Thus for example, in the Social Studies textbook for Standard V, the "Indus Valley civilisation" has become the "Sindhu Civilisation" (chapter heading in Lesson 4). It is not clear what the rationale is for using the term Sindhu civilisation instead of the Indus or Harappan civilisation, which has been the term hitherto used. Apart from its historical importance, the Indus Valley civilisation, which flourished in the basin of the Indus and its great tributaries, is also a valued symbol of the shared historical legacy of the countries of the subcontinent. Hindutva historians have tried to lay a spurious nationalist claim to that legacy by arguing that a majority of the excavated sites of the Indus civilisation are within the borders of present-day India. These historians have in recent times used the phrase "Sindhu Civilisation" because the Rig Veda refers to the Indus as the Sindhu. But the use of the word "Sindhu" implies more than just an innocent return to linguistic purity. It represents an attempt to link the Rig Veda to the Harappan civilisation.

The whole period has been presented as a dull and dry history of dynasties, cluttered with the names and military conquests of kings, followed by brief acknowledgements of "social and cultural life", "art and architecture", "revenue administration", and so on. The entire Mughal period (1526-1707) is disposed of in six pages, ending with an explanation of the decline of the Mughal empire, a historical process attributed primarily to Aurangazeb's Islamic zeal.

Several chapters in the Mathematics text have box items which highlight the discovery of "Hindu" mathematicians, like the concept of zero, which has been described as "a jewel from the Hindu Mind". What is of concern is the celebratory tone in which these tidbits of information are presented, the thrust being on proving prior knowledge in Hindu society of concepts and theories that are popularly believed to be the contribution of "foreign" scientists. AISEC has drawn attention to this trend in its memorandum. It says: "But distortion of facts, by sieving out Indian achievements and projecting them, while minimising the Arabic and European contributions to knowledge, is tantamount to historical distortion which instills false pride in the past and an immature sense of nationalism. It impedes the development of a scientific temper and has to be strongly discouraged."

- Mis-oriented textbooks, PARVATHI MENON, Frontline, 30/08/2002, N00 /eldoc/n00_/mis_oriented_textbooks.html

Text

The legislative assembly of Delhi passed a resolution on October 29, 2001: "This House strongly condemns the attempt made to distort the history of the country and resolves to support the implementation of secular education policy based on the provisions of our Constitution." The House went on to recommend that on "page 328 of [the] 11th class NCERT curriculum book Madhyakalin Bharat, under the heading 'Sikh', appropriate amendment may be made and objectionable portions about Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji be removed. .. that book authored by individual writers containing objectionable comments about various religions including the book titled Ancient India be proscribed forthwith". By an order of the Delhi government (October 9, 2001), the portions containing derogatory reference to Guru Teg Bahadur were deleted. ..No one has yet provided an answer to the query: how can the recommendation of the Delhi government, which was secular and in the interest of history and the nation, become communal when NCERT just 'dittoed' it? Confusion in differentiating between 'reprint' and 'print' has been talked about. The book that was considered 'communal' was, in fact, in use for many decades.
The tragedy is that Sanghvi and his ilk ignore that completely A Class XI book declares that in ancient India "people certainly ate beef but did not take pork on any considerable scale" and that "the cattle wealth slowly decimated because the cows and bullocks were killed in numerous Vedic sacrifices". Read again and decipher whether it is history or politics that is being played out in textbooks?

- Is professionalism history?  JS Rajput, Economic Times, 17/11/2004, /eldoc/n20_/17nov04et1.pdf
 

CABE Politicization of Education

- BJP-ruled states defy Centre, not to withdraw textbooks, Deccan Herald, 11/08/2004 N20 /eldoc/n20_/11aug04dh1.pdf
 

The defeat of the BJP in the election of 2004 is not the end of communal ideology or the efforts to inculcate it in society. On the other hand, if the reports are true, communalisation through education is likely to intensify. The joint secretary-general of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Shyam Gupta, recently stated that a project is on the anvil to reach out to 100,000 tribal villages through a four-point programme of education, health, economic progress and self-respect. As a part of this agenda, about 1.5 lakh single-teacher schools are being set up in tribal villages, with RSS cadres employed as teachers. Since there would be no government control over these schools, it is certain that they would indulge in the Hindutva's pedagogy of hate. It is no secret that the Sangh Parivar has already organised a parallel system of education through the schools controlled or managed by it. The addition of these new schools would further extend its reach as well as reinforce it.

- Education: beyond review, KN Pannikar,  The Hindu,29/06/2004, N20 /eldoc/n20_/29jun04h2.html
 

If desaffronisation is to be successful and enduring, the challenge will not be changing the contents of textbooks; this is relatively easy. The challenge will be to have textbooks pro-duced by a process that commands credibility; the challenge will be to overcome the widespread cynicism that the human-ities and social sciences are simply appendages of the powers that be, that curriculum change is not simply about changing the colour from saffron to red, or that odd combination of saf-fron and red that Congress used to indulge in. The challenge of desaffronisation will be to move away from the thought that education is about ideological indoctrination. The past failures of educational establishment on this score, the complete collapse of the distinction between ideology and education that characterises left dominated states like West Bengal, suggest that this task is easier said than done.

Neither left much room for a nuanced confrontation with difference and conflict itself. The challenged of de-saffronisation is to write the history of conflict without simply writing away that conflict. In both BJP and left historiography citizenship came to be tied to particular conceptions of history. We were put in this morally awkward position whereby our secular credentials were judged by the views we took on medieval history, or the citizenship status of minorities was thought to flow from what their ancestors might have done five hundred years ago.

The aim of desaffronisation in the humanities and social sci-ences ought to be to impart a general set of skills that makes
students more articulate and reflective about their moral com-mitments and rights. It ought not to patronisingly shield them
from the complexities of difference. Our debates over curriculum have concentrated more on the content of education than on its purpose: the provision of a general intellectual training.

- Desaffronising: easier said than done The impression that history is a tool for ideological warfare should be erased, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Tehelka, 26/06/2004, N20  /eldoc/n20_/26june04teh1.pdf

The panel of three historians entrusted with the task of undertaking a "quick review" of the history books prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) today recommended their withdrawal. ... the three historians were of the view that the errors and biases were far too many and frequent to be corrected. "It is not advisable to continue with these texts for even a year," said a member of the panel and former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, S. Set-tar.

Though of the view that the NCERT's National Curriculum Framework for School Education ought to be reviewed, the historians said that was a larger exercise which required more time. Also, they are of the view that textbook writing should
be decentralised and not left to a few individuals but should reflect the collective wisdom of a number of scholars.

- Withdrawal of controversial textbooks recommended,  The Hindu, 25/06/2004, N20 /eldoc/n20_/25june04h1.pdf 
 

When people say that school history should offer nothing but facts, they reveal their ignorance of how a child's mind works and develops. Facts acquire mean-ing for a child when they carry a perspective. The usual way textbook authors understand perspective is in terms of ideology. But there are other ways to define perspective. If we take the child's perspective, our primary con-cern will be to explain how we know what we know about the past. Most textbook writers don't bother to tell children what the sources of historical knowledge are.

...In Germany, the teaching of history has been a matter of great national anxiety, specifically with reference to the treatment of the Nazi period. If you look at a German high school level textbook, you are struck by the variety of sources it introduces to chil-dren and also by the imagina-tive treatment it offers to the subject matter. For instance, a Class IX textbook asks children to analyse and compare the perspectives ref-lected in the editorials written ' by three major dailies on the day America entered World War II. In their exam too, children are given such material and asked to make judgements within given parameters. By the scale of this intellec-tually stimulating approach, our teaching of history looks unforgivably backward. We have been so obsessed with ideological issues in the teaching of history that we have just not bothered to look at pedagogy. What I find quite astonishing is that historians have not been disturbed by the common knowledge that children hate history. More disturbing is the fact that schools consider history and other subjects of the humanities stream fit only for  the less  bright. Indeed, some prestigious  schools have scrapped the humanities sections altogether. If this becomes a  trend, we will no longer need poorly written textbooks to create an unthinking public mind. Our educational policy needs drastic reform, but curriculum and textbook-related policies deserve subtler attention than we are used to giving. The challenge of protecting the young from indoctrination can only be met by encouraging them to think

- Facts Are Not Enough, Krishna Kumar, Times of India, 23/06/2004 N20 /eldoc/n20_/23jun04toi1.pdf

Already in the eye of a storm for his controversial history books, NCERT di-rector J S Rajput will now face an official in-quiry on charges of financial and administrative irregularities lev-elled by Nilotpal Basu, CPM MP from Rajya Sabha and NCERT staffer.
The HRD ministry on Friday decided to institute the inquiry against Rajput which include victimisation of colleagues, appoint-ment of relatives to NCERT, engaging consultants without justifica-tion, irregular spending of Rs 1 crore in the name of commissioning new textbooks, and another Rs 1 crore on a cul-tural programme.

- NCERT chief faces probe for irregularities, Shivani Singh, Times of India, 20/06/2004, N20  /eldoc/n20_/20june04toi1.pdf

Detoxification

Along with the Bharat Jan Vi-gyan Jatha, a host of leading edu-cationists and intellectuals have drawn up a Common Minimum Programme on Education (CMPE).The names include former UGC chairman Yashpal, educationist Anil Sadgopal, writer Naamvar Singh, economist Prabhat Patnaik, ...
The entire process should begin with the NCERT, the document suggests: "Constitute a high-pow-ered committee to review NCERT's National Curriculum Framework Closed Chapter.
• Stop reprinting, distribution of controversial books
• Review all learning material recently prepared by the National Open School for School Education (2000) and the syllabi and textbooks prepared during the NDA regime with a view to exposing communal, divi-sive and obscurantist ideology" Among other things, the CMPE has  recommended a review of all appointments, promotions and transfers made in the last five years in academic bodies such as NCERT, UGC, ICSSR, ICHR, ICPA and CBSE in violation of norms. If the recommendations of the CMPE are accepted, it could also mean curtains for NGOs close to the Sangh Parivar. "Identify  NGOs related to the Sangh  Parivar being funded by the ministry of HRD and  other ministries for educa-tional  work and take measures to  stop their funding," it says.

- Mission Detoxification, Sakina Yusuf Khan, Times of India, 06/06/2004, N20, /eldoc/n20_/06june04toi1.pdf

Writing for History Texts

Educationists have recently drawn attention to the fact that an obsessive Arjun-like concentration on the eye of the targeted-bird — in this case the Indian na-tion- state — in school books is to rob both the child and the discipline of history of an informative, yet critical perspective on the relationship between our past and our present. History text-book writers need to take all this into account. They might also like to mull over the forthright enunciation in December 1947 by professor Mohammad Habib, one of the doyens of Indian history: 'The writing of histories should not, as a rule, be directly subsidised by the state... Under the old regime we wrote in a spirit of constraint... Our national leaders should now be willing to pass on to us a fraction of the freedom they have obtained. A state-dominated interpretation of history is one of the most effective means of sabotaging democracy'.

- Educational Reforms What Is Not To Be Done, Shahid Amin, 02/06/2004, N20 /eldoc/n20_/02june04toi1.pdf 
 

Curricular reforms are needed with greater empowerment of the state and regional au-thorities within a national curricular framework, stresses Kumar. Former head of the Social Sciences department in NCERT, Arjun Dev, feels the academic nature of the NCERT has been destroyed. "It no longer comprises aca-demicians but people who implement an ideology. In fact, most appointments to academic institutions... consisted of people who would follow the ideological agenda of the BJP or those who would agree to imple-ment their agenda. Those appointments ought to be  reviewed," says Dev.  The universal elementary education programme is an-other area that the academics  want to focus on. "The draft of  the Right to Education Bill has many flaws that need to be reviewed," says Nalini  Taneja, a Reader in history in  the Delhi University  Noted historian Irfan Tinkering with class XII history  text books.
•No mention of Shivaji's  levy of chauth (one-fourth   of revenue) and  sardeshmukhi (an additional one tenth), which he exacted from  areas not under his control. In levying these exactions, he did not differentiate between Hindus and Muslims
•No mention of Akbar's views on prohibition of  slave trade, disapproval  of sati and prohibition of  involuntary sati
•No mention of Hindu Mahasabha's opposition to the Quit India Movement
•The book says the Vedas prescribe punishment for injuring or killing a cow. That is inaccurate: the cow was revered and treated as sacred, but it was also offered as food to guests Habib also feels that primary education needs a greater push.
"The one-teacher schools have to be closed down so that children receive  proper education. Such schools were given permis-sion to operate so that the RSS could promote its ideolo-gy," says Habib.
Privatisation is another matter for concern. The aca-demics explained how pri-vatisation of universities and schools was taking edu-cation beyond the reach of the poor even as the govern-ment withdrew further from the education sector.

- De-saffronise school books: Academics, Rema Nagarajan, Hindustan Times, 16/05/2004 N20 /eldoc/n20_/16may04ht1.pdf
 

The National Council of Educational Research and

  Over a dozen historians participated in the day-long meeting on Saturday. Some of the members reportedly found fault with the chronological sequence in the syllabus for Medieval and Modern India. Others observed that the general framework of the syllabus was the same as the old one, and the changes were not adequate enough to justify this long exercise.

- NCERT releases new syllabus, The Hindu, 22/01/2002, /eldoc/n20_/ncert_releases.htm

A sane society requires an open and democratic culture of learning. It requires the ability of the learner to dissent, question the established truth and see beyond. But then, the CBSE, it appears, is determined to kill this emancipatory ideal of education. It is tragic and dangerous that this otherwise prestigious board of education has begun to dictate the contents of learning as well as the mode of teaching. For example, all CBSE schools have been asked to delete from history textbooks all that does not fit well into the paradigm of an ‘ideal’ Hindu society.

As the CBSE circular suggests, the students should not study or even discuss, say, what Romila Thapar has written about beef eating in ancient India, or what Arjun Dev has written about the Jats and their plundering riots when they established a state in Bharatpur! Possibly this taboo on historical insights is yet another effort towards what many would like to regard as the saffronisation (or Talibanisation) of education. Even if one does not indulge in this ‘political rhetoric’, it is difficult to overlook the damaging consequences of this closed/exclusivist pedagogy.
The ruling establishment does not seem to be happy with Romila Thapar, Arjun Dev and Bipan Chandra. But then, these are great names whose contributions to the development of our historical imagination cannot be denied. This is not to suggest that they are infallible. It is possible to find sharp critiques of their historical perspectives and findings. It seeks to censure and repress whatever does not please the ruling establishment. None is denying that history texts even when written by eminent scholars may be incomplete and one-sided. But banning or repression is no answer to this ideological character of knowledge.

A child may be born in a conservative/caste/Hindu society; but a democratic classroom and a lesson in the history of protest as launched by Phule and Ambedkar or Buddha and Kabir might enable her to look at the world from the perspective of the ‘other’. Likewise, a child may came from an utterly anglicised/elitist family, but a decolonised classroom milieu might inspire her to see the cultural capital of an Upanishadic sage, a bhakti poet, or a rural peasant of Champaran who contributed to the making of Gandhi. All these wonders are possible only if we respect the creative potential of the teacher and the critical faculty of the learner. And this requires not authoritarianism, but sustained efforts to attract the finest
minds (as teachers, writers and planners) to the domain of education.

- CBSE AND POVERTY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Need to educate the educators, AVIJIT PATHAK, Deccan Herald, 10/01/2002 N20 /eldoc/n20_/10JAN02DH5.htm

...our historians possessed the skills and expertise to write textbooks and, after Independence, this task should have been left to individual writers and not undertaken by the government. Officially sponsored works run the risk of being withdrawn, as illustrated by the experience in 1977 and  now, with a change in regime. Besides, writing textbooks at the behest of a government can turn messy in a society where the reading of the past is contested with unfailing regularity. Even where contestations are not so sharp, the norm is to encourage wide learning and not to prescribe a set of books produced by an official body.

...history teaching serves as a means of ideological indoctrination. So that history’s role in arousing an interest in the past and respect for it gets totally sidelined. Both in India and Pakistan, history is pressed into service to promote the project of nation building. Consequently, the rival ideologies of nationalism are underlined not to heighten the critical faculties of our students but to create a sense of pride in their Indian or Pakistani citizenship.

- The deafening clash of myth and fact, MUSHIRUL HASSAN, Indian Express, 10/01/2002, /eldoc/n20_/10jan02nib.htm
 

The Nobel-Laureate and Master, Trinity College, Cambridge, Amartya Sen, today denounced the Union Government's reported move to impart religious values as part of primary education. Chances were high that this move would impart a sectarian attitude based on religion, he said.

Addressing the media after a two-day workshop on `Education, Equity and Human Security', co-hosted by the UNICEF,
Harvard University, the Commission on Human Security and Pratichi Trust, Prof. Sen said religious self-esteem, in practice, was often misdirected to a sectarian outlook which might bring more harm than good.

On the Centre's move to change the educational content and curriculum, he said ``there is a danger that some political groups may manipulate the educational content and curriculum in schools for subversive purposes. Openness of the curriculum and a secular and inclusive approach that cultivates reasoning and scrutiny can be central to the role of education to promote human security''.

- Amartya Sen decries `sectarian outlook' to education, The Hindu, 05/01/2002, N20 /eldoc/n20_/amartya_sen.html
 

British colonial writing never conceived India as a nation but instead saw it as an adhoc conglomeration of several discrete communities. In addition, these communities were seen not as rational agents but only as subjects of feelings. Individuals, on this view, saw themselves solely as members of sentimental communities, with no reflective powers to distance themselves from their community or be able to challenge practices they found unbearable. The NCERT replicates this Orientalist view and simply grafts it on to modern India today. It thereby perpetuates a deeply offensive picture of India self-consciously and painstakingly fought against by the movement for Independence. More importantly, this picture is plainly wrong. I doubt that a society has ever existed in which all its members defined themselves exclusively in terms of the community to which they were attached.

The decision-makers at the NCERT may respond to this by saying that they are not making mutually exclusive claims. Individuals can belong to a particular community and yet see themselves independent of it. Likewise, individuals can simultaneously be rational and emotional. The point, they might say, is that even rational individuals have feelings. Though mostly rational, Hindus have sentiments too which are hurt when told that their ancestors ate beef. So do Sikhs when they read that Guru Tegh Bahadur indulged in plunder.

This is all very well but embedded in the NCERT response are three further assumptions. First, that emotions, quite like sensations, are biological perturbations that occur within us, not collectively generated entities for which we are responsible. Second, once triggered, there is no easy way to control them. All counter strategies to deal with powerful emotions are therefore impotent. Even the persuasive powers of reason are annulled. An emotion is like pain. It cannot be expunged by rational talk. Third, what is beyond our control is also outside the ambit of rational or moral evaluation. If we, conscious agents, are mere receptors of feelings that just happen to us and that spring from sources outside reason, then they can neither be rational nor irrational, neither be good nor bad. Does it make sense to say that our inability to fly is irrational or that our mortality is immoral? We may regret that we are finite creatures, but surely we cannot say that there is something wrong about it. These are just plain facts about us, beyond reason, beyond good and evil. It is the same with feelings. We cannot rationally assess or morally evaluate them. Because they overwhelm us, we are entirely passive in relation to them. It is best then to give in to emotions and bow before the much stronger sentiment of collectivities.

- History and community sentiment, Rajeev Bhargava, The Hindu, 02/01/2002, N20, /eldoc/n20_/history_and_community.html
 

Education and Social Change

Hence the nation is imagined a prior to its logical?) culmination and this enervates any attempts to rigorously understand aspects of our past outside the framework of the nation. Local histories, its culture, its people’s specific position vis a vis the freedom struggle and other struggles and movements in post independent India, that might make more sense to students studying in CBSE schools in moffusal centres of India are ignored and indeed even frowned upon. By concretising nation and centring nation as the fulcrum of debate, where the nation is also seen to be part of its people’s ‘common sense,’ we permit easy co-option and appropriation by its more chauvinistic proponents (read Hindutva). We all know that the nation building process is far from over and the problems posed by caste, religious and regional feuds themselves are to be seen as problems where a nation is attempting to come to grips with itself. Such a dialectical and tension ridden approach between the region and (the category of) the Indian nation should inform the writing of our new history textbooks and not presented as resolved issues or as undermining the Indian State.

- Writing History ‘Right’, Deccan Herald, 30/12/2001, N20 /eldoc/n20_/30dec01dch.htm
 

The government is very pleased that the Supreme Court has decided in favour of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in the textbook case.

The verdict has been interpreted as a slap in the face of secularists. The critics had contended that the social science textbooks for Classes VI and IX newly issued by the Council dealt with religion in a way that violated the secular spirit of the Constitution. The court struck down their contention and held that textbooks were well within their rights to refer to religions.

- Your horse is an ass, sir, H.Y. Sharada Prasad, Asian Age, 06/11/2002,  /eldoc/n20_/06nov02aa1.htm
 

Currently the other equally dangerous path being pursued in the field of education is to introduce courses, which promote blind faith e.g., courses in karmakand, purohitya and astrology etc. Introduction of astrology in the face of great advances in astronomy gives us the insight about the contrasting methods of faith and reason.... These moves are aimed at stifling and rooting out the very basic aim of education, to cultivate critical and independent thinking amongst the children. The current move is a prelude to the long-term goal of controlling the mindset of the society in a particular direction and to create a conformist society.

A similar education policy in Pakistan has played havoc with the educationsystem there. The thinking of a large chunk of society has become stunted and the newer generations are not able to throw up good professionals rooted in science and other modern disciplines. The present moves of the government are aimed at neutralising whatever little progress the country has been making in the field of education and modern historiography. The present circular is the first step in a direction, which will result in the fragmentation of the cultural bonding of different communities. This will also deliver a crushing blow to the scientific temper, promotion of which is one of the basic goals of our Constitution.

- Shed the ideological baggage, RAM PUNIYANI, Indian Express, 28/11/2001, /eldoc/n20_/cbse_circular.html  

Case for astrology

 While any academic or researcher would urge an unbiased exploration or analyses before rejecting a discipline study, unfortunately astrology has not been given out that kind of rational treatment. A pity.  As is well established, the science and art of astrology has existed in India for over 5000 years.

... However, is not the use of astrology in our daily lives very real? Are not Hindu marriages, and all auspicious occasions, often settled after conjunctions of numerous planets and by calculation of (Hindu) mathematics?
Influenced by all this, the University Grants Commission decided in February that the Vedic astrology be granted the status of a regular university discipline. This was besides the fact that several Indian universities and noted private institutions, such as the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanaskrit Vidyapeeth and Bharatiya Jyotish Anusandhan Parishad, already teaching, researching and promoting astrology in some form or the other. Dr Shukdev Chaturvedi, head of the Jyotir Department of the Lal Bahadur Shastriya Sanskrit  has said that astrology is a “subject of eminence importance since the present state of astrology consists of 21 Shastras, but none of them is truly taught in our universities since no specialised course of astrology is available ... Jyotish Shastra was the oldest science in the world”.
...Probably it’s due to these facts that 35 Indian universities have applied to the UGC seeking permission to start Vedic astrology courses at  under-graduate and post-graduate levels. Later, M Phil and doctorate programmes could be initiated in this discipline.

- STELLAR POWERS : Give Astrology A Chance To Prove Its Worth, MN DUA, Statesman, 23/08/2001 /eldoc/n20_/powers.htm
 

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. ... Among the other "truths" and "values" that textbooks will teach our schoolchildren:
*The Aryans were India's original inhab-itants; 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 won-derful... 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"...
*"Our concept of the joint family is a unique contri-bution in the history of mankind. Generation after generation we have developed it." The break-up or some or the oppres-sive structures of the joint family is thus not progressive, but a set-back!...
*"Bharatiya culture is the only culture which has understood the life problems (sic) in their totality and has made a con-tinuous effort to solve them. In the his-tory of the world, it is the only effort to see the science, philosophy, religion, psy-chology and social life in an integrated form." (sic)

- Prejudice as 'education', PRAFUL BIDWAI, Frontline, 24/12/2000 eldoc/n20_/24dec00frn1.pdf
 

According to the survey, the only reference in the Class 9 social studies textbook to the casteist bias indignities of the caste system as it exists today is through an attempt to blame the plight of untouchables on their own illiteracy and blind faith. The section, called "Problems of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (page 95)", reads: "Of course, their ignorance, illiteracy and blind faith are to be blamed for lack of progress be-cause they still fail to realise importance of edu-cation in life. Therefore, there is large-scale illit-eracy among them and female illiteracy is a most striking fact."

- Gujarat textbooks betray casteist bias,Young Students Are Taught : A Crow Is A Safai Kamdar, All Brahmins are learned fellows, Harit Mehta, Times of India, 28/09/2004, /eldoc/n20_/28sep04toi1.pdf

Now, where has the Court gone wrong? The one obvious area where the Court has gone wrong is not just that it has placed the NCERT in the position of an official body but treated it as a substitute for CABE and federal consultation. This is wholly contrary to its own decision in the NCERT case (1991, 4 SCC 578) in which the Council successfully argued that it was a private body and not state within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution and in respect of fundamental rights. How, then, did the Supreme Court ignore its own the NCERT decision of 1991? It does not matter if the 1991 decision was of two judges? Surely, the NCERT knew its defence of 1991. It should have told the Court that it was a private body. Instead, it went along with the Court making the NCERT the official federal basis of all educational change. In fact, the Court said: "There is nothing in either the Constitution of the NCERT or in any Rule, Regulation or Executive Order to suggest that the NCERT is structurally `subordinate' or inferior to any other body in the field." This is amazing. A body declared to be private in 1991 has been declared to co-equal if not superior — to all in 2002 without the earlier ruling being examined. For this reason alone, this judgment of 2002 is wrong and proceeds on the wrong fundamental assumption.

The textbook case judgment responds to the Court's great and genuine concern about the decline in values in `modern' life. But the Court's answer that some version of religion is the answer is an intuition that cannot be exercised so as to run contrary to the secularism of a multicultural society; and in particular Article 28 of the Constitution.

- The textbook case, Rajeev Dhavan, Hindu, 04/10/2002, /eldoc/n00_/textbook_case.html

The sixth committee will explore regulatory mechanisms for what is taught by parallel textbooks outside the government system, e.g., in Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and madrassas. This is in response to a growing concern that certain bodies use schools to propagate communal prejudice.

Religious Schools

the state government has in place a law which in substance and in fact ensures total government control over madrasa education, something which can be challenged as violative of Article 30 of the Constitution. That no one has done that so far suggests a cosy relationship, which suits those who run madrasas and the government, both. The reason is simple and has been aired earlier. According to official figures the government spends about Rs 115 crores a year on maintaining the madrasas registered under the Act and which entitles them to the largesse from Government. Whether it also suits national interests is another matter altogether.

The influence of colonial rule and western ideas, which filtered through it, over the modern system of education in India, is well known. The reconstruction of the system of education in post-independent India was undertaken in the context of the legacy of colonialism, both in policy and infrastructure. Yet, the  system that came into being, as a result of the deliberations in several education commissions, chaired by eminent educationists like Dr.S.Radhakrishnan and Dr.D.S. Kothari, was neither a continuation of the colonial nor a blind adoption of the western. The main concern was the formulation of a reformed system that would address the developmental needs of the nation and create a healthy social consciousness. The national policy on education laid down this perspective as follows: "a radical reconstruction of education" is essential for economic and cultural development of the country, for national integration and for realizing the ideal of a socialistic pattern of  society. This will involve a transformation of a system to relate to more closely to the life of the people; a continuous effort to expand educational opportunity; a sustained and intensive effort to raise the quality of education at all stages; an emphasis on the development of science and technology; and the cultivation of moral and social values....

Alternate Thought

The search for an alternate system had a long history, dating back to the early colonial times. The nostalgia about the indigenous, as evident from the writings of many, including Gandhi who described the pre-colonial system as a beautiful tree, is a natural response to conditions of subjection. Yet, there was no  attempt to resurrect the pre-colonial or to adopt the traditional as the ideal. Instead the concern of all those involved with educational reform was to marry the traditional with the modern. A national system of education which the colonial intellectuals and nationalist leaders tried to evolve was based on a possible synthesis of all that is advanced in the West with all that was abiding in the traditional. In other words the national policy was not lodged in a dichotomy between the indigenous and the western. The impact of such a policy was the internalization of a universal outlook and the location of the indigenous in the wider matrix of human history. The educational policy adumbrated by independent India, even if it faltered on many a count, was informed by an open-ended view.
      

The change in the character of education from the secular to the communal is taking place at a historical juncture when transnational capital is tightening its stranglehold over the Indian economy and society. The impact of this new phase of imperialism, euphemistically called globalisation, thereby masking its real nature and intent, is well pronounced. That the privatization of education, particularly the withdrawal of the state from higher education, occurring at a brisk pace in recent times is at the instance of  the World Bank is now well known. Not only steps are afoot to set up private universities, but also several foreign universities are vying with each other to set up their "extension counters" in India. Given that the best of Indian universities are starved of funds these institutions are likely to have a field day. As for Indian universities they function today without even the basic minimum facilities and with teachers who have no access to the latest advances in their disciplines. These institutions churn out students who complete their education as outcastes even in their own chosen area of knowledge. What these institutions offer is unacceptable to the fast growing affluent Indian middle class.

The situation is likely to aggravate in coming days with the UGC reportedly being deprived of its funding functions and the introduction of an accreditation system which would stamp many an institution as academic slums without ever the possibility of a honourable redemption. Understandably education is a fertile land for investment, particularly if it comes with a foreign tag.The response of the ruling classes and the present government to this crisis is encoded in a report prepared by industrialists, Mukesh Ambani and Kumaramangalam Birla, entitled A Policy Framework for Reforms in Education, and submitted to the Prime Minister‚s council on trade and industry. The brief of this young team of industrialists is to formulate a policy framework for private investment in education, health and rural development, which they appear to have done with alacrity and enthusiasm. The proposals, which they claim would usher in a revolution in education, in fact, provide a blue print for the unconditional surrender to the interests of advanced capitalist countries and for the preservation of the existing privileges of the ruling classes. The revolution proposed is the creation of a "competitive, yet co-operative, knowledge based society". The prescription is as follows:

As the world moves on to forging an information society founded on education, India cannot remain behind as a non-competitive knowledge economy. India has to create an environment that does not produce industrial workers and labourers but fosters knowledge workers. Such people must be at the cutting edge of knowledge workers and, in turn, placing India in the vanguard in the information age.This grand design is to be implemented through direct foreign investment and privatization. It advocates "a full cost recovery in higher education and encouraging the emergence of a largely self-financing private sector". The rest, be it the primary and secondary education or the liberal and performing arts or "disciplines whose scholars do not command a market", may be left to the patronage of the state. The unstated implication of the scheme is that it would generate two streams: one for the poor and the other for the elite. The education of the former would be limited to literacy while the latter would be the receivers of knowledge. But then the nature of the information society of countries like India, as subordinate partners of advanced capitalist countries, would be nothing better than that of a service sector. Far from being competitive and innovative they are likely to be destined to perform innumerable labour saving works for the benefit of transnational capital.

The most glaring example is the medical transcription in which a large number of Indians, some of them with high technical qualifications, are currently engaged in performing the clerical work for American hospitals. Several other labour saving "opportunities" are on the way. This is not to argue that the opportunities opened up by information technology are to be shunned,  but to suggest its creative incorporation in the system of education. At the same time it is necessary to recognize the fact that the educational conditions created by information technology are pregnant with the possibilities of intellectual colonization. The breaking of the geographical barriers and communication restrictions are indeed healthy attributes of knowledge dissemination, but it cannot be divorced from the economic and political contexts of knowledge production. The Ambani report, trapped in platitudes and rhetoric, appears to be insensitive to these larger issues inherent in the new information regime.

- Whither Indian Education?, KN Panikkar, SAHMAT, /eldoc/n00_/whither-education.htm

Communalisation of Education GS

The Opposition Congress has dubbed the census in rural areas as the BJP’s “attempt to disturb communal harmony”.

Education minister Anandiben Patel denied any religion-based survey in village schools. She, however, admitted students are being asked to fill in a questionnaire, but argued the exercise is aimed at making them aware of their social and cultural surroundings.

The four-page questionnaire seeks to find out how many people belong to which religion in a village, the festivals that are celebrated, the number of religious places and their historical importance.

The survey is being conducted as part of the government’s district primary education project’s documentation exercise in each of the state’s 18,000 villages. District education officials have been directed to send the details in the form of a “village diary”.

- Religion census in Gujarat schools, Telegraph, 22/01/2005, /eldoc/n21_/22jan05TEL1.html

Communalization of education

- Ganesh Bandana in textbook stirs storm, Sunando Sarkar, Telegraph, 22/08/2003, /eldoc/Education/220803.pdf

Communalisation of Education NCF

- Hijacking India's History, KAI FRIESE, New York Times, 30/12/2002, /eldoc/n21_/hijacking_history.html

Our "secularists" are nothing if not origi-nal and highly imaginative. They will cry "wolf" even if they see a rabbit. Even if there is no living thing anywhere, in sight. Crying wolf has become a habit with them. The slightest move on the part of HRD Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi to set education in India in the right direction and our secularists will see red. Actually, not red but saffron.

Months ago the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) laid down a national curriculum framework for school education. It was a document available to anyone who cared to read it. It was not something secretly drawn up for equally secret implementation.

Actually it is a product of a long, par-ticipatory and democratic process of wide ranging deliberations and discussion held at multilevel seminars and workshops throughout the country.

The Supreme Court had a limited issue before it to examine whether the National Curricular Framework (NCF) violated the secular character of our constitution or not in the PIL filed by Aruna Roy and others. It has ruled that the NCF proposal on value education does not violate it. The judges, however, have issued a word of caution that the programme be implemented in a spirit of equal respect for all religions. This implies that value education has the danger of being misused for reinforcing sectarianism.

The conflict is unlikely to remain limited to a tussle between secularists, who make up a majority of the population if one goes by social attitude and political choice, and Hindu nationalists represented mainly by the Right-wing religious-sectarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which leads New Delhi's multi-party ruling coalition.

The issue has a federal devolution dimension too. Many Indian states are up in arms over what they see as blatant federal interference in their school curricula without consultation or consent.

The controversy has major implications on the rights of the child to unbiased information,and for the issue of tolerance and respect for difference in the plural, multi-cultural, multi-religious society of 1 billion people in this country.

NCF Communalisation of Edu Edu and the LAw CAPE

The Supreme Court today categorically held that there was no attempt to saffronise the school syllabus in the new National Curriculum  framework for Secondary Education (NCFSE) -2002 and directed its immediate implementation. Rejecting a PIL filed by Aruna Roy and other eminent educationists, a three-judge Bench by 2:1 majority held that “non-consultation with the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) cannot be  held as the ground for setting aside the national curriculum.”

The three Judges gave separate judgements in which Mr Justices M. B. Shah and D. M. Dharmadhikari concurred.

However, Mr Justice H. K. Sema, though agreed that non-consultation of CABE could not be a ground for setting aside the NCFSE, directed the Central Government to immediately reconstitute CABE and seek its views on the new curriculum.

Both Mr Justices Shah and Dharmadhikari were categorical in their finding that the teaching of the essence of all religions, as was sought to be done in the NCFSE, could not be equated with the imparting of religious instructions.

Holding CABE to be a non-statutory body and that its consultation for framing the new syllabus was not mandatory, Mr Justice Shah said the court was not to decide why CABE was not reconstituted. “It is for the government and Parliament to decide whether to reconstitute or to do away with the body,” Mr Justice Dharmadhikari said.

A new school curriculum set to go into effect in India in 2002 has drawn protest from churches who see it as an attempt by the pro-Hindu coalition government to "tamper" with history in order to promote Hinduism at the expense of minority religions.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) in a statement on December 7 expressed "serious concern over tampering with historical data" and cautioned education policy makers "not to deprive the coming generations of the possibility to know the truth in its integrity, an essential ingredient for any civil society."

Earlier, the executive committee of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) decried attempts by the government "to promote Hindutva [Hindu nationalism] through education."

Supporting Hinduism "will only perpetuate religious fundamentalism and further the marginalization of minorities," cautioned the NCCI, which represents 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches in India.