Editorial: Textbooks must open minds

The State Government’s decision to exclude the stories and essays by rationalist thinkers and progressive writers from the 10th standard syllabus and replace them with the speech of RSS founder Mr. Hedgewar and writings of right-leaning authors is bound to raise eyebrows. The decision is not unexpected, given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) long term agenda of saffronising education in the name of aligning it with Indian ethos and penchant for imposing its sectarian view of India’s past.

Reports suggest that the textbook revision committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha has recommended dropping Mruga Mathu Sundari by celebrated writer Lankesh and the lesson on Bhagat Singh by G. Ramakrishna. Similarly, Sarah Aboobakar’s story ‘Yuddha’ is also being dropped. These chapters are being replaced by M. Govinda’s ‘Naanu Prasara Bitta Kathe’, Shivananda Kalave’s ‘Swadeshi Sutrada Sarala Habba’, ‘Shreshta Bharatiya Chintanegalu’ and Govindacharya’s ‘Sukanashana Upadeshana’. Even a cursory gleaning of the list of the authors being dropped and those being included makes it evident that celebrated and well-known writers are being excluded while lesser known are being brought in in keeping with the Sangh Parivar’s line of greater induction of mythology into young minds.

A major goal for education should be to open mind rather than narrowing and sectarianizing them. But given the track record of the writers with leaning to the right, attempts have been made to turn myths into a reality and bizarre claims have been made about ancient India’s achievement. Much against National Curricular Framework’s directive that history should be seen from all perceptions, the history of medieval India has been distorted out of proportions. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is on record having said that there was an organized attempt in India to write a history maneuvered to suit a slanted agenda in contemporary politics. While addressing the 2014 session of Indian History Congress he had observed that ‘Such an attempt was being made with arbitrary augmentation of a narrowly sectarian view of India’s past, along with undermining its magnificently multi-religious history’.

Not alone history, weird interpretations have infiltrated the realm of science and technology. Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal had told the Parliament that ‘Lakhs of years ago, Sage Kanad had conducted a nuclear test’. Dinanath Batra, convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti had claimed stem cell research was invented by an Indian, Dr. Ganpat Matapurkar after having been inspired by the Mahabharatha. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at the inauguration of a hospital in Mumbai in October 2014 equated birth of Mahabharatha’s Karna to genetic engineering.

An educational curriculum designed to promote hate, unnecessarily glorify history, berate communities and nations other than one’s own and overall close minds would only hinder progress. In order to reap the demographic dividend, the people would need education that aims at infusion of sound knowledge and imparting of values, character and discipline. Writings that narrow down visions, nurture chauvinism and promote biases would only lead to a society that would be prone to conflict and retrogression.