Frontline

July 2000
History Preaching


One step forward, two steps back

The Gujarat government admits its textbooks describe ‘Muslims, Christians and Parsees as foreigners’ and glorify Nazism and Fascism. But the Union HRD minister insists he will not direct any revision in these texts

Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Union minister for human resources development has told a cross–party committee of Parliament that he ‘cannot force the Gujarat government to withdraw from school textbooks the description of Muslims and Christians as ‘foreigners.’ Other discrepancies in the social studies texts of the Gujarat board (as in many other Indian text books brought out by both central and state boards) include glorification of the Varna system of caste and of fascism and nazism, without recounting the selective extermination of 6 million Jews in concentration camps!

Last month we had shared with readers the success of the campaign that we had a significant role in generating through the KHOJ secular education programme. The fact that hundreds of teachers had begun looking at the content and scope of Indian text books, the fact that the national and international media had focussed on the issue and finally, the sheer fact that the Gujarat government was compelled to admit to the discrepancies in its reply to a standing Parliamentary Committee on HRD set up precisely to examine whether the bias and saffronisation charge on Indian texts could be established (CC,April 2000) were the milestones of our success.

Within weeks of this success comes the setback in the brazen stand of the Union HRD minister that he cannot intervene. It reveals how, for the success of any of our campaigns to be enduring we have to keep persisting without giving up. It is not enough to launch the campaign, we have to show bureaucrats and the government that citizens take this issue seriously and mean business.

Through this all, the proverbial silver lining on the dark clouds on our horizon comes in the very admission of discrepancy or bias extracted by the Parliamentary Committee from the Gujarat state textbook board. This is enough to consolidate and carry on our campaign until the Gujarat texts, at the very least, have been changed.

We reminded readers in the last issue that while the success in Gujarat must be enjoyed and consolidated by us, there was no space nor the time for complacency. It is not just the Gujarat texts that are problematic. Many texts of the more prestigious ICSE board, some recommended texts for graduation level history in Maharashtra, texts in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are also glaring examples of the same or similar kinds of bias. Hence the campaign needs to build up and carry on.

Meanwhile, CC has managed to access a copy of the report submitted by the Parliamentary standing committee on HRD that was examining the issue. It makes interesting observations.

Commenting on the stand taken by Joshi in refusing to interfere in the content of the textbooks of the Gujarat board, the report says, "It was explained to the Committee that publication of the textbooks was entirely decentralised and neither the government of India nor NCERT has any control over the textbooks published by state boards. The Committee is of the view that in the event of such an instance taking place, the Department should take steps to put the factual position in the right perspective by initiating a dialogue with the concerned state government. (emphasis added)".

One of the members of the Parliamentary standing committee, Eduardo Faleiro, submitted a dissenting note to the chairman of the committee, S.B. Chavan.

In this note, Faleiro says, "The Constitutional mandates of secularism and democracy are essential prerequisites for national unity and social harmony. The government of India should therefore take a serious view of school and college textbooks such as mentioned before the committee which are objectionable from the above point of view. Government of India should instruct the concerned state governments to withdraw such textbooks or delete the objectionable passages contained therein."

The note also concludes, "On the basis of the material placed before the committee it is strongly felt that Dr. K.C. Rastogi who has been appointed by the minister of human resource development as his representative in the selection committee of NCERT is unsuitable for this office and should be removed from the same."

The infamous Rastogi, apart from being a proud member of the RSS, is the man who led a mob to attack a Muslim habitation in 1947 and he himself shot dead a Muslim woman "to save my colleagues from raping her"(From his autobiography, Aap Beeti). He is today also a member of the executive board of the Open School Society and of the executive council of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration.

 

 


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