India: Imposing Sectarian Agenda on Educational Syllabus

 

Ram Puniyani

 

In the name of rationalization of curriculum many a topics have been removed from the CBSE syllabus (April  2022). From the tenth standard syllabus; the topics excluded are democracy and diversity, rise of Afro-Asiatic Islamic states, history of Mughal Courts, non alignment movement, impact of globalization on agriculture, popular struggle movements, poems of Faiz in the section of Communalism and challenges to democracy.

Criticizing this; Rahul Gandhi labeled CBSE as Central Board for Suppressing Education, and called RSS, the force behind these policies as Rashtriya Shiksha Shredder. Also All India Democratic Students Organization has launched a signature campaign against it. As such when the BJP comes to power, one of its major goals is to modify change the education policy and curriculum to tune it to its version of sectarian nationalism. Its focus is on faith based knowledge away from scientific temper and rational approach to social, historical issues.

One recalls when BJP led NDA came to power in 1998; Dr. M.M. Joshi was the MHRD minster. He changed the history books to introduce communal angle to historical events. Accompanying this was the introduction of Paurohitya (Priest craft) and Karmakand (Rituals). In contrast to scientific astronomy, astrology started being taught. There was an interesting paradox. In astrology Saturn was the trouble makers, while in astronomy Saturn was taught as a planet of Sun. In opposition to biological understanding that sex of child is determined by X or Y chromosome coming from father, the Putrakameshti Yagna (ritual to get male child) was being taught as the method for getting the much sought after son.

The pattern continues. RSS has already formed Shiksha Sanskriti Uthan Nayas, an RSS affiliate, to campaign with influence the MHRD ministry. It has been pressurizing NCERT for removal of English, Urdu and Arabic words, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore; extracts from painter M F Husain’s autobiography; references to the Mughal emperors as benevolent, to the BJP as a “Hindu” party, an apology tendered by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the 1984 riots; and a sentence that “nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002”. (25th July 2017) As such these recent recommendations to NCERT are continuation of the same agenda which is working for its goal of Hindu Rashtra.

 It had also been putting pressure to undertake Bharatiyakaran of education. Under its pressure many publishers have also buckled. The major example is that of Penguin, pulping the book ‘The Hindus’ by Wendy Doniger. This was an academic work which looked at various aspects of Hindus, particularly the plight of women and dalits. One RSS leader Dinanath Batra has been very active in this area and has produced number of books for school children. In Gujarat 42000 schools introduced his books after their translation to Gujarati.

The pattern of the curriculum presented in these books spells things like Kutub Minar was a Hindu Monument, called Vishnu Stambh, built by Samudra Gupta. These books totally bypass the syncretic traditions and present the Kingdoms through the eyes of king’s religion. The focus is to present the view that foreign Muslim rulers were doing atrocities on the native Hindus. It is through this lens that Kings of Mughal dynasty are presented. Now in the new scheme of things the Mughal Courts and their pattern will be totally eliminated. Even the during much maligned Mughal period the Mughal Kings had Hindu associates (Akbar+Mansingh, Aurangzeb+Raja Jaising) to give just a small sample.

In these books Muhammad Gazni and Ghori are the key villains. Gazni had many Hindu generals (Tilak, Sondhi,Harzan, Rai and Hind) in his army. Shivaji and Rana Pratap presented as the main heroes. Incidentally Shivaji’s confidential secretary was Maulana Haiser Ali and Rana Pratap had Hakim Khan Sur as one of his generals.

The disturbing changes brought by BJP are an attempt to construct a history to suit its narrative of Hindu nationalism. Gandhi (Hind Swaraj) and Nehru (Discovery of India) gave the history of India, which was inclusive and reflected the emerging National movement and underlying concept of Indian Nationalism. The changes brought in by BJP in education were called as Saffronization by its critics. Initially BJP and company responded to this criticism by ignoring the phrase. Later they aggressively said that the syllabus needs to be saffronised. Even present Vice President Venkaiah Naidu asserted that syllabus needs to be saffronized.

The current changes which are seeing are in tune with their political requirements of RSS Combine. Mughal Court was an example of Hindu Muslim unity, so it can’t have a place in BJP scheme of things. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who was a democrat and secular and was also nominated for Nobel Prize for Literature, is an icon for literature for progressive democratic values. Having a poet with Pakistani identity will surely be big no for the present ruling dispensation.

Currently one of the aims of the Government is to undermine the first Prime Minster of India, the architect of Modern India, one who stood tall for his commitment to democratic and secular values, Jawaharlal Nehru. His major contribution on global scene was to evolve and work for Non Alignment Movement. This movement gave a new direction to global alignments. It also helped India to develop taking advantage of collaboration of different camps in the World despite the Cold war. So the chapter on Cold War era and non alignments has been kept out of the syllabus.

Present ruling party and its ideology want to push the country in authoritarian sectarian state, where democracy has no role, so that chapter on pluralism and diversity is out. India’s pluralism and diversity have a major role to play in the culture and strength of India. India’s freedom movement and Indian Constitution respect our diversity. But uniformity in language, religious traditions and other cultural aspects is what is being aimed at.

Overall the changes proposed, to be implemented are in tune with the concept of nationalism, and the culture which sectarian nationalists want to impose on the country. These need to be opposed and ensure that our syllabi are in tune with rationalism, scientific temper of pluralism of India.