COMMUNALISATION OF EDUCATION

 Resist Assault On Reason

Rajendra Prasad

 IN a significant development all the secular opposition parties held a meeting in New Delhi on October 16 and unanimously resolved to launch a nationwide campaign to oppose the communalisation of education in the country under the BJP-led NDA dispensation. The meeting reached a consensus that in the states governed by the non-NDA parties, the new NCERT social science books for class VI and IX will not be introduced.

In several states review committees to review the curriculum framework and the new text books have been constituted. The meeting also appealed to the NDA partners, especially the TDP and BJD, to reject the curriculum and the text books.

Ever since the publication of the NCERT books early this month historians, scholars, school teachers and others have pointed out the communal bias in these books along with the factual errors some of which are deliberate motivated by the ideological predilections of the sangh parivar.

Ever since the BJP-led government came to power it has aggressively and unashamedly tried to push the communal agenda in education. The very first indication was available when in October 1998, the minister of human resources development, Murli Manohar Joshi, called a meeting of the education ministers from different states and wanted it to be inaugurated with Saraswati Vandana. Joshi had put on the agenda of the meeting a paper written by RSS businessman who also happened to be the chairman of the RSS controlled organisation, Vidya Bharati, which runs over 20 thousand RSS schools where the distinction between the fact and prejudice is totally obliterated. A number of studies of these books have critiqued their contents. The meeting ended in a fiasco. The HRD minister has not called a meeting of the state education ministers since then.

A communal revision of history has been central in the agenda of the BJP and its ideological allies. In this context Professor R S Sharma had noted: “The communalists want to present all subjects in a communal colour, but they consider history to be the most effective vehicle of their indoctrination. If they have their way in history they will concentrate on two or three questions which will certainly make things easy for both teachers and students, but at the same time this approach will destroy the very fabric of secular India and lead to the disintegration of our nation. They will emphasise that all temples were demolished by the Muslims who are foreigners in this country.  They will teach that all social evils in Hindu society have been introduced by the Muslims. They will give special attention to beef eating and hold the Muslims responsible for the introduction of the practice. …. They will teach that the Hindus are the descendants of the Aryans who were the indigenous inhabitants of India and all the others are foreigners”. (Assault On History, SAHMAT, p.24)

All those who were challenging this communal, chauvinist and irrational view of India’s past were clubbed under the rubric ‘leftists’ and then described as “intellectual terrorists" who were equally (if not more) dangerous as terrorists from across the border by the minister of human resources development, late last year. The books that have been brought out now reflect the communal agenda in history writing most brazenly. It is clear to everyone that the Supreme Court judgement on the National Curriculum Framework which holds that technically the NCERT need not consult CABE for its approval, does not sanction distortion of facts and myths being taught as history. Perhaps the Supreme Court should take suo moto notice of what is contained in the texts being justified in the name of its judgement by no less a person than the minister himself.

A number of glaring errors and the bias in the books were pointed out in our issue dated October 7-13, 2002. Since then a number of scholars, some of whom are no leftists by any stretch of imagination, have pointed out that the books are full of “twisted tales written by people of uncertain caliber and dubious intent”. Nayanjot Lahiri in an article in the Hindustan Times dated October 18 has noted: “As for the chapter on Harappan Civilisation, the information, at best, is unsatisfactory and at worst is plain wrong. We are told that "there developed a civilisation along the Indus and Ghaggar/Hakra (ancient Saraswati) which is known variously as Harappan, Indus or Indus-Saraswati civilisation". Actually the civilisation also developed in parts of Baluchistan, Afghanistan, mainland Gujarat and UP and  none of these form part of the Indus and Ghaggar/Hakra river systems. Again, the Harappans were not the earliest people to grow cotton (p.82). Cotton seeds have been found in a much earlier - 5000 B C - context from Mehrgarh”.

And further, "Most outrageous has been the manner in which Dholavira, perhaps the most spectacular city of the Harappan civilisation, has been blanked out." Lahiri has no doubt that "the authors must have their reasons for excluding Dholavira, but these cannot be academic ones."

The current ICHR chairman, a BJP appointee himself  has implied that the books have a north-Indian bias and pointed yet another factual error “Gangaikondacholapuram, Thanjavur and Tiruchi were all shown as part of the Sangam Age map” (The Hindu, October 22)

Another sangh parivar historian Makhan Lal who is also among the authors of the Class VI book says about Mahatma Gandhi's assassination not finding a mention in Class IX book: "Mahatma Gandhi's assassination was certainly one of the most important events in the history of the nation. It should not have been overlooked even by mistake." (The Indian Express, October 12)

Another scholar Amar Farooqui has pointed out that in the class VI book “There are serious errors as well. Egyptian civilisation, we are told, 'developed around 7500 years ago' (p.59). This means that Egyptian civilisation, according to the book, began circa 5500 B C. In other words the date for the beginning of this civilisation has been pushed back by nearly 2500 years! The consensus among the historians (as reflected in the recently published volumes of the UNESCO History of Humankind) is that Egyptian civilisation began c.3100 B C. Researches of the last few decades have established that the Nile valley, which sustained Egyptian civilisation, could not be inhabited till 6000 B C due to large-scale flooding in the area during the period following the end of the last Ice Age.

"That this date is not a printing mistake is obvious from the section on Mesopotamian civilisation. This civilisation is stated to have developed around '7000 years ago' (p.63), making it later than Egyptian civilisation. It is generally recognised by historians that Mesopotamia (Iraq) was the home of the world's oldest civilisation -- the Sumerian civilisation. The sequence in which the section on Mesopotamia is placed (it comes after Egypt) suggests that the authors are convinced that it developed after the emergence of Egyptian civilisation. Moreover, the beginnings of Mesopotamian civilisation go back to c. 3500-3200 B C (i e less than 5500 years ago, and not 7000 years ago). One might add in passing that southern Iraq, where Sumerian civilisation developed, was too swampy before 5000 B C to allow extensive settlement. Such carelessness about dates points towards utter ignorance of the subject”.

The Aligarh Historians Society has pointed out in relation to the class VI book: “The Vedic civilisation is held to be so old that no dates at all are given for it in the textbook, on the map and the text it is virtually that it is identical with the Harappan or Indus Civilisation. The territory of the latter is said to be '12 times of  (sic) the Egytpian and Mesopotamian civilisations combined', whereas it was less than double the area of Mesopotamia. In the "Vedic Civilisation", it is claimed, everything was known: decimal placement of digits, zero, periods of planetary movements, distances of "heavenly bodies from the sun", and even the earth's rotation around the sun. The pupil must think that the Indians have been the most stagnant people on the earth, having made no advances whatever in knowledge since Vedic times!”

The diabolical agenda of communalisation of education is not confined merely to either the NCF or the assault on rational history writing.  During the last 3-4 years the sangh parivar has packed all institutions of research and higher learning with sangh parivar men with no academic credentials. Even a self-confessed murderer was appointed as a consultant to the NCERT, his only qualification being a member of the sangh parivar.  A former Jan Sangh MP was appointed as chairman of the ICSSR who later fell out with the minister and had to be removed. The Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Shimla, the University Grants Commission are some of the other institutions which have been packed with the sangh sympathisers.

In the ICHR the publication of the two volumes of the Towards Freedom project edited by Profs. K N Panikkar and Sumit Sarkar has been held in abeyance for the last three years. The volumes have been held back under the saffron censor because they contain documents from a period when the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS kept aloof from the ‘Quit India Movement’ and Sarvarkar proposed  his ‘two-nation theory’.

Over the last two years eminent scientists and mathematicians in the country have publicly denounced the moves to introduce Vedic mathematics and astrology into the education system. In a statement issued on August 13, 2001, around 200 scientists had said: “ The scientific community has greeted  with similar protests the recent proposal of the University Grants Commisssion to introduce courses on astrology, vastushastra in the universities. The UGC proposes to set up full-fledged departments of vedic astrology; these departments are to be called Jyotir Vigyan, and they are to be set up from the academic session 2001-2002. The HRD minister, Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi, claims that it is for academics to decide whether to introduce these courses. But the truth is that the UGC is offering cash incentives to cash-strapped universities to start these courses, obviously without any discussion within the academic community. The UGC circular states that 'vedic astrology is not only one of the main subjects of our traditional and classical knowledge, but this is the discipline which lets us know the events happening in human life and in the universe on time scale (sic).' As if this were not absurd enough, the circular continues: 'There is an urgent need to rejuvenate the science of vedic astrology in India to allow this scientific knowledge to the society at large and provide opportunities to get this important science even exported to the world.' We now need official pundits armed with university degrees to predict earthquakes, for example, presumably to spread even greater panic than they did recently in Gujarat. Perhaps the UGC thinks houses collapsed in Ahmedabad and Bhuj because of the absence of vastushastra, not because of poor construction by rapacious contractors. Vedic astrology traces its origin to Maharshi Parasara’s book ‘Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra’, a compilation of rules and guidelines with reference to marriage, children, illness, wealth and so on. There are also three Vedanga Jyotishas and eighteen Sidhaantas (Surya Sidhaanta being one of the most notable among them), all of which codify astronomical knowledge – possibly to facilitate astrological calculations and elaborate on the rules of worship written in the vedas. As early as 499 A D Aryabhata’s magnum opus ‘Aryabhatika’ differentiated between this 'real' and 'false' knowledge. He describes true knowledge as a jewel he took 'from the ocean of real and false knowledge – with his own intellectual power.' The line separating  astrology and astronomy was not drawn in a day; it is those who claim to be proud of our heritage that are erasing this line; decrying afresh Aryabhata’s distinction between true and false knowledge; between science and pseudo-science. The old belief – that the heavens influence events on earth—is understandable. If seasons are governed by the movement of the stars, why not the fate of kings and the common people? But over the centuries, as we have unravelled the mysteries of nature, such notions have lost their power to explain the world around us. Many people may still believe in astrology; but this is in realm of belief, best left as part of personal faith. Acts of faith cannot be confused with the study and practice of science in the public sphere."

While total rejection of the new text books by the states is central to the fight against communalisation of education, the assault on reason and rational discourse by the sangh parivar on all these counts has to be unitedly resisted.