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Umh!, Whats this? |
Cover Story January
2001
Education with values
BY TEESTA SETALVAD
Young backs burdened with
heavy texts. Tomes of homework and pres sures 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.
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:
Ø “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).
Ø “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).
Ø “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?
Ø “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).
Ø “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.)
Ø 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?
Ø “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?
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?
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.
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. |