People's Democracy

THE kinds of debates over history textbooks we are familiar with in India are now raging in the California state of the US. The RSS linked organisations in the US have been trying to get school textbooks for young children saffronised in much the same way as they did in India. They of course do not hold the government there, nor do they have state governments in their control as they do in India. But they do carry clout in the US among the NRIs and Americans of Indian origin, and also within the US establishment as representatives of the Indian community there, a clout that they utlise to the maximum—as obvious from the numerous charities they have attracted in the past and now as stakeholders in the textbooks to be taught in California schools to both Indian and Californian children. The People's Democracy carried a report on this a few weeks ago, underlining the content of the changes proposed by them (so-called edits) and how these changes fit in with the larger political agenda of the RSS in India.

Since then the RSS linked organisations like The Vedic Foundation and The Hindu Education Foundation have managed to get most of the changes that they wanted incorporated into the chapters dealing with ancient Indian history and culture in the book under revision (currently the book for Grade 6). Despite a controversy and strong opposition from well known indologists and about a 100 scholars and teachers of South Asian studies, not to speak of letters opposing these revisions from Indian historians (D N Jha, Irfan Habib, Shereen Ratnagar, Shireen Moosvi and KM Shrimali to name a few), the Curriculum Commission of the Board of Education has accepted the RSS sponsored vision of history and culture. Of the total of 156 edits requested by these organisations, the Commission accepted 97 edits that conformed to what the Hindutva organisations had recommended at a meeting on December 2, 2005. This was when the matter had already become a public issue and the State Board of education had already been alerted of the perniciousness of the RSS agenda of falsification of history for political purposes.

While the acceptance of these "edits" by the Curriculum Commission is really tragic, and requires some explanation other than the obvious one of how an RSS linked expert initially manouvred to have himself nominated to a committee for revisions, the matter is not finally settled even yet. The State Board of Education, of which the Curriculum Commission is a constituent, still has to give its sanction to these changes, and is the final deciding authority. The State Board has been alerted to the Hindutva agenda by indologists like Michael Witzel, James Heitzman, and Stanley Wolpert who have made a campaign of the issue and have been working with the Board since then, but it has also been swamped by so-called academics who have "discovered and "proved" through "scientific methods of research" what the RSS shakhas have been propagating for many decades in India and the Hindutva linked organisations have made part of their essential readings and educational material in the last two decades. This sector has now become quite significant in the social, cultural life of the NRIs and Americans of Indian origin.

The changes accepted by the Curriculum Commission at the behest of the Hindutva organisations fall into a familiar pattern. They present ancient India in a glorious light, eliminate what was negative during that period, most notably the caste system, references to which have been removed or suitably modified, and the unequal position of women is now mentioned in terms of ‘different’ rights rather than unequal rights etc. There is a preoccupation with pushing back the dates of Vedic civilization and showing Indian civilization as essentially Hindu, and Aryans as indigenous. These are matters that challenge the discipline of history as a social science, by injecting mythification and falsification of history into school curriculum, but their implications go beyond the realms of intellectual debate into politics because an RSS version of "authentic history" of India and of Hindus go against the grain of what education is all about—the inculcation of a scientific temper, a questioning spirit, minds free from prejudice and with a respect for difference and plurality. Interestingly this whole enterprise of chauvinism is being proposed in the name of plurality and respect for difference, by giving "space" to those who have assumed for themselves the right to speak for all Hindus—in fact all Indians—and who are open admirers of Hitler and the notion of superiority of the Aryan race! Hence their desperation to show it as ‘race’ and originating in and indigenous to India, representing a mythical ‘golden age’!

We would of course wonder why the RSS linked organisations are so keen on all this fabrication of Indian history and culture in the US, to push their vision on children who have little real contact with India and who would most likely never come to India. These children are part and parcel of American society rather than of India, even given their rootlessness and restlessness born out a feeling of "difference". They are only capable of a long distance nationalism—and the RSS is keen that it should be of the Hindutva variety.

HINDUTVA OVERSEAS CAMPAIGN

The reasons for the Hindutva overseas campaigns and creation of networks of Hindus through all kind of social service organisations in the US and in Britain can only be understood in the context of their agenda in India, for which an ever flowing stream of financial resources is of crucial significance. The alarming growth of the RSS sponsored organisations in the tribal areas of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, the North East states and Orissa would simply have not been possible without the steady flow of "funds" from the US and Britain. The volume and role of this huge fund of resources from these countries into the RSS networks has been documented very ably by citizens groups, and one can well see that with the BJP not in power at the centre, the significance of these "charities" from foreign lands can only assume greater importance for the RSS here.

School textbooks that portray India as essentially Hindu, whose greatness has been undermined since the invasions and cruel reigns of Muslim rulers, create both empathy for "Hindu" organisations and causes, and hatred for Muslims, a scheme that ties up very well not merely with the Hindutva agenda in India, but with the Islamophobia currently promoted by the US establishment. And if such school texts could influence the visions of both children of Indian origin and those born of American parents as well—a steady stream of charities could well be ensured for a long time.

And the reason we have some members of the Board, not Indians at all, falling over themselves in pleasing the Hindutva agents in the US shows the strength and legitimacy acquired by these organisations in the US establishments as spokes people/representatives of the Indian community. The identification of Indian studies with religious studies and the Sanskrit language etc has always been promoted by the academic establishment in the US and Britain. Despite the criticisms of the genocide in Gujarat and the Hindu religious fundamentalism by the US establishment, it is the Hindutva agents and organisations that carry legitimacy within it and are celebrated as another manifestation of the pluralism and diversity of American society. The secular, democratic south Asians are largely rendered invisible when it comes to considering questions of history and culture of South Asians. Very much like the right wing Jewish lobby, we have now a well organised Hindu right wing lobby that is in a position to influence the US establishment.

The manner in which the Indian-American press has been covering this issue reflects this. The whole matter is being presented as a debate between the faculty (some of them white, all of them "anti-Hindu") and a monolithic, aggrieved Hindu community. India Post, India West and India Abroad have given a whole lot of space to this debate, but secular Hindus/ Indians/ South Asians) has been very poorly represented. There is equal coverage and space in these papers for those who are making it out that historians who protested the Hindutva sponsored changes are "anti- Hindus", and that history should be written not just by historians who presumably "sit in ivory towers" but "with inputs from the community", or that those "who are practicing Hindus" are likely to "know" better the truth about their religions than those who are not, etc etc.

For a lay person who reads these papers it would appear that there are two sides to the story—not just in the sense that some have views that diametrically differ from those of others, but that there are two equally valid ways of looking at India. Obviously the media perception of objectivity is being interpreted as equal coverage to both sides, not a promotion of what is correct. We are so familiar with this in our own country, when we have Sudarshan expounding on demography alongside a social scientist in another column, and the reader is left to decide for himself/herself who is correct. The one who gets more space? The one who has a bigger clout? This could become the criteria for deciding on our history and culture, if the RSS has its way with textbooks—in India or in California.