People's Democracy

         Detoxifying NCERT

 Arjun Dev

ONE of the notable ‘achievements’ of the BJP-led government has been the communalisation of history, in fact its destruction as an academic discipline, with NCERT playing the role of the main instrument for this ‘achievement’ insofar as school education is concerned. The Common Minimum Programme adopted by the United Progressive Alliance on May 27, 2004 carries the promise that the ‘UPA government will take immediate steps to reverse the trend of communalisation of education that had set in the past five years’. The UPA government’s minister of Human Resource Development has used the phrase ‘detoxification’ to describe what he proposes doing to implement the UPA’s CMP in the area of education. While the ‘toxin’ has affected all areas of education and various educational curricula which would require to be reviewed by expert bodies, immediate beginning for ‘detoxifying’ education needs to be made in the area of history. The ‘toxin’ introduced in this area has already been too well-documented in numerous writings by experts, teachers and other academics and concerned individuals, groups and parties as well as in the report prepared by the representative body of the country’s historians – the Indian History Congress – to await the review by another body of experts for taking ‘immediate steps’ to remove the ‘toxin’. This means immediate withdrawal of all social science textbooks for Classes VI to X and all history textbooks for Classes XI-XII by NCERT during 2002-04 and their replacement by NCERT’s texts which were in print until then. Any delay in taking this decision would mean exposing school children to ‘toxified’ texts for at least one more year. It is possible that the stock of NCERT’s pre-2002 texts has been pulped by the authorities of NCERT. If this has, indeed, been done, the reprinting of those texts can be done, thanks to modern printing technology, within a very short time and the texts made available to students by the time the next school session begins. This, however, can happen only if the decision in this regard is taken immediately.

It may be recalled that NCERT’s new textbooks began to be introduced after September 2002, and some in December and January, for the 2002-03 academic session and the NCERT authorities under the BJP-led government were so completely committed to introducing the communalised textbooks that they refused to allow the use of earlier textbooks even though about half the academic year was already over before their versions of social science and history textbooks could be made available.

Forces hostile to the CMP of the UPA government are already at work to stall the implementation of the CMP. A report in the Hindustan Times [May 28, 2004] quotes ‘ senior ministry official’ saying that “in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that the textbooks were okay”. The statement is totally false and has been clearly made with a view to mislead the unwary. The Supreme Court case was about the National Curriculum Framework for School Education [NCFSE], which the Supreme Court judgment said, cannot be set aside on the ground that it did not have the prior approval of the Central Advisory Board of Education [CABE]; the case was not about textbooks and there was no okay for any textbook. The newspaper report further says, “ Officials believe that to alter the curriculum, Singh will first have to constitute the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) which has been out of existence since 1994.”

This belief of the officials is also meant to mislead. The curriculum implemented by NCERT during BJP-led government’s rule was not approved by CABE; in fact, the BJP-led government had declared CABE to be a defunct body [and the person who continues to hold the position of Director of NCERT repeated it on NDTV-India on May 30, 2004] and refused to convene it even though two of the three judges of the Supreme Court who heard the case had directed  the Union of India to reconstitute it and convene it, and place the NCFSE before it for its consideration. Why should scrapping of a curriculum, not approved by the CABE, be placed before the CABE for approval? The CABE had approved the curriculum framework of 1988 which was replaced by the BJP-led government in 2000 without even consulting the CABE, much less seeking its approval. The CABE should be convened to consider, among other things, the necessity of revising/replacing the 1988 curriculum, not scrapping the 2000 curriculum and reverting back to the pre-2000 curriculum and pre-2002 textbooks.

What about the kingpin, the Director of NCERT who converted that organisation into an instrument for communalising curriculum and, in the process, violating every norm and rule governing the functioning of an academic body as well as transgressing every norm of behaviour expected of the head of an academic body by openly and completely aligning himself with the political party of RSS and its sister organisations and becoming the chief spokesman of its ideology? There have been demands by the faculty of NCERT, even before the BJP-led government was ousted in the recent elections to Parliament, for an inquiry into numerous cases of harassment of staff, of corruption, of violation of rules and norms in appointments (including giving illegal extension to heads of two departments) and into various other matters.

Some of the appointments made by him are public knowledge, for example that of an RSS  journalist appointed as a consultant to review NCERT’s history textbooks and to set right NCERT’s Publications Division (according to this Organiser journalist, it is not Christians who killed Jews but Christianity). The case of another RSS functionary is too well known to be recounted here. He earned much infamy for writing in his autobiography how he killed a young Muslim woman to stop the goons led by him for fighting among themselves over her during an attack on a Muslim habitation in 1947 and patting himself on the back saying: main ne kaha na rahe ga baans na bajegi bansuri. He was nominated to the Executive Committee of NCERT. It has turned out that he is also a song writer and audio-cassettes of his songs are being currently prepared by NCERT’s Central Institute of Educational Technology. [That Institute has also recently discovered that NCERT Director is also a poet. Considering his high status, not audio but video cassettes on his poems are currently under preparation.] Almost from the beginning of his ‘rule’ in NCERT five years ago, he has been the chief ideologue, however ridiculous he may have been in that role, of NCERT’s ‘toxic’ history. As recently as on May 30, 2004, he was shown on a TV channel defending and acclaiming what have come to be popularly called ‘saffronised’ history textbooks of NCERT. Will there be no inquiry into his blatant abuse of authority, no retribution, and no relief for those who have suffered what the NCERT academics in their letter to the Ministry have called his ‘tyranny’?