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17 January 2007
Return of the Rightwing Textbook
A new Rajasthan book equates Indianness with the Hindu identity and
trashes Muslims and other communities. Is anyone listening?
by Apoorvanand
Textbooks are back in
news. This time it is the turn of the Social Sciences book for Class x
students prepared by the Rajasthan Madhyamik Shiksha Board, Ajmer. One
needs to remember that this book results from the decision of the
Rajasthan government to reject the new National Curriculum Framework
for School Education 2005 evolved by the National Council of
Educational Research and Training (NCERT). All bjp-ruled states had
declared that they would prepare their own textbooks as the books
prepared by the NCERT were biased according to them. It would be
interesting to see, therefore as to how they fight out the bias of the
NCERT books in the books prepared by their own objective teams.
This is how the
Rajasthan social sciences experts do it. The first chapter of the book
seeks to introduce the students to the basics of the Indian Culture:
Our culture is known as Arya sanskriti, Bharatiya sanskriti and Hindu
sanskriti. Lest there be any confusion in the minds of the readers, the
book explains it further: in fact these three nomenclatures are
synonyms. What happens to the non-Aryans then? Where would the
Adivasis, dalits go? The book does not forget them. Adivasis are called
Vanya Jatis who were once organised and reformed by none less than
Ramchandraji himself. Elsewhere you find Baba Ramdeo (a folk guru of
Rajasthan) inculcating good habits in them. The assumption is that they
are essentially backward and repository of many ills and they need one
Ramchandra or Ramdeo to be cured of these ailments. After extolling the
virtues of Bharatiya sanskriti in great detail, which you know is
nothing but Hindu and Arya sankriti, it goes on to ask the students to
answer these questions:
• (Choose any
one) The ultimate goal of human life is: 1. Dharma, 2. Artha, 3.
Moksha, 4. Kaam;
• Write the
names of the four Ashramas;
• Write the
definition of Bharat and Bharatiya on the basis of Vishnu Puran.
Uzma Mohsin
India is superior to
other countries (or nations) because elsewhere they have only two-three
seasons, whereas in India we have six of them. India is great because,
can there be any doubt, astronomy, mathematics, medical science,
surgery and even plastic surgery originated here only (Don’t
you remember the famous case of the head of an elephant transplanted on
Ganesh?). Biology, metallurgy, name any science or branch of knowledge,
we had everything here before any other nation or culture, that is what
makes us a great nation and culture. Since everything was already here,
how can trade unionism be something we learnt from the West? The book
informs its readers that workers revered Vishwakarma and exploitation
was always fought with organisation.
Since the book has this
“objective” view of what actually constitutes
Indianness, in all the chapters it seeks to give the students an
overdose of Hindu religion. Description of Hindu Gods and Goddesses,
religious festivals, places of pilgrimage cover three-fourths of the
book. If you ask as to how and why it should be called a Social
Sciences book at all, you would be labelled as anti-Bharat.
The writers of the book
have no ambiguity about the enemies of Bharat. On more than one
occasion they are identified as a Samudaya Vishesh (a particular
community) which lives on the borders of Rajasthan, pampered by both
Pakistan and India, who keep going (where?) and coming back. This
Samudaya Vishesh has been encouraging infiltration and there was also
rampant trafficking of cows and minor girls before the good Seema Jan
Kalyan Samiti (SJS) informed Rajiv Gandhi about the irregular
allocation of land to the illegal infiltrators who then got them
cancelled. sjs, incidentally, is one the many RSS outfits. Readers are
informed that the people who live on the international borders are
poor, uneducated, and superstitious owing to their dharmic shraddha.
But Hindus can never be superstitious as Hindu religion is very
scientific. Is it difficult then to guess who form this Samudaya
Vishesh? When the chairman of the Board was told by a journalist that
Muslims were very upset with this description, he retorted that the
book had never named them and if they felt upset then it is what you
say in Hindi: Chor ki daadhi mein tinka.
The book violates the
basic principles of the Constitution and can’t be allowed to
be inflicted as school knowledge on the defenceless children of
Rajasthan. Some of us who have been trivialising the debate on
textbooks need to take a hard look at it
The book also suggests
that the growth in population of this community needs to be monitored
closely, steps be taken to stop conversion and its appeasement.
The book dwells at
length on the problem of terrorism. It states that in Jammu and Kashmir
(J&K) there are more than 100 terrorist organisations (Do not
ask for the source of the data, it is more a matter of astha). It goes
on to claim, without batting an eyelid that the J&K government
works under pressure from terrorists and some leaders are in league
with them which is why the Rehabilitation Act got passed (do not ask
what exactly the “Act” is called), a temporary
provision in the form of Article 370 was made in the Constitution which
is being kept alive under the policy of appeasement. It says that there
is an imbalance in the number of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats allocated
to the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh.
The book actually makes
a prescription for abolishing terrorism. It asks for tough laws to
prevent religious conversion and infiltration, to abolish all kinds of
appeasement, political vested interests (whatever that means). It calls
for the destruction of the bases of organisations like the United
Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and removal of the names of
infiltrators from electoral rolls, among other things.
After seeking an
immediate repeal of Article 370, it demands poori chhut for the armed
forces to finish off terrorism. And you thought that there are
populations fighting for the repeal of Acts like the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act, 1958 and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. It
calls for an end to the discrimination against the Jammu and Ladakh
regions and suggests that we need to talk to Pakistan in a language of
power.
While discussing
political philosophies, it is stated that fascism is significant as it
removes the deficiencies of democracy, spreads the spirit of
patriotism, allows a leader of strong will to take firm decision
immediately without any hesitation.
Somebody said that this
book is a crude copy of an rss pamphlet and need not be taken
seriously. Written in a pedestrian language and full of howlers on
almost every page, this book does need to be taken seriously as it is
going to be imparted as the official and final knowledge to lakhs of
students of Rajasthan who do not have the resources to go for any
source of knowledge other than this State-sponsored textbook. It has
been written in a very offensive manner belittling Adivasis, dalits and
casts aspersion on the governments of J&K and Muslims. Its
approach is militarist and it seeks to realise the project of an upper
paste Hindu male nationalism. It violates the basic principles of the
Constitution and cannot be allowed to be inflicted as a respectable
school knowledge item on the defenceless school children of Rajasthan.
Some of us who have been trivialising the debate on school textbooks by
asserting that all governments seek to propagate their ideologies
through textbooks need to take a hard look at the Class x Samajik
Vigyan book discussed above. Parliamentarians, civil rights activists
need to ask for its immediate withdrawal. Courts of the land need to
take suo motu cognisance of this blatant violation of the right of an
average Indian to live in dignity by the Rajasthan Madhyamik Shiksha
Board and hold them accountable. Let us not allow ourselves to suffer
from textbook controversy fatigue and keep talking about it.
Apoorvanand teaches at
the Delhi University
[Reproduced in public
interest from: Tehelka, 20 January 2007]
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