Battling Bigotry

An all–party MPs forum has been launched to challenge the attempt of the HRD ministry to impose a saffron education policy on the country without discussion or debate 

In a welcome move to counter the blatant attempts to impose, without discussion and debate, a  saffronised education policy on  the country, an all–party forum of MPs has been launched to counter the overt communalisation of Indian education. The Forum will also act as a watchdog against the bid to privatise education. If successful, the bid would make education inaccessible to the majority of Indians. 
Eduardo Faleiro (Congress I, MP), the convenor of the Forum and other member MPs, including independent Rajya Sabha MP, Kuldip Nayyar, announced it’s launch and detailed it’s objectives at a press conference in New Delhi on May 4. 

The Parliamentary Forum for Education and Culture “will resist every move in the areas of education and culture which runs contrary to the constitutional mandate of democracy, egalitarianism and secularism. It will make efforts to promote awareness of these issues both within and outside Parliament.” The membership of the Forum is open to all MPs committed to the goals of democracy, egalitarianism and secularism enshrined in the Constitution and who visualise education and culture as powerful instruments for realising these goals. Among the 50 MPs already enlisted by the Forum are: Prakash Y Ambedkar, Shabana Azmi, Chandresh Kumari, Dr MN Das, Ven’ble Dhammaviriyo, Kartar Singh Duggal, Kuldip Nayyar, Sharief Uddin Shariq, KA Sangtam, Basanti Sarma, Shyama Singh, Raj Babbar, Manik Lahiri, Prof. Bharati Ray, C Apok Jamir, Abani Roy, Rama Shankar Kaushik, MJ Varkey Mattathil. 

The Forum has taken strong exception to the sharp shift in orientation and policy by the HRD ministry as manifest in the New Curricular Framework for Value Education (released in December 2000) and the decision to thrust Vedic Astrology courses into  all universities. According to the Forum, these are symptomatic of a hegemonic agenda that violates the basic principles of democracy and secularism as enshrined in the Indian Constitution. 

The fact that these documents have become policy (the NCERT has already announced it’s decision to go ahead without parliamentary sanction and publish new history texts in keeping with the devious policy) without standing the test of public debate and parliamentary scrutiny is also being questioned.
“The parliamentary forum is deeply concerned at the manner in which the present government is bringing about fundamental changes in practically all fields of education without the sanction of Parliament and of the mechanisms which have existed in our country for the last 50 years for evolving a national consensus on matters concerning education. The national policy on education adopted by Parliament in 1986 provided for a review of its implementation at least once every five years. It may be recalled that the last such review was held in 1991 through the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) which has among its members the education ministers of the states and Union Territories. The review by CABE was placed before Parliament and approved by Parliament. 

“The present government has  disregarded the requirement of a review of the implementation of the policy through the mechanism of CABE and in Parliament. It has also been pursuing policies and programmes which are clearly violative of the major thrusts of the National Policy on Education which was adopted by Parliament unanimously.”

The Forum has expressed deep regret that the 83rd Constitution Amendment Bill 1997, which proposes to make education a fundamental right, is lying in cold storage due to a lack of political will and has not yet been discussed in Parliament. It also pointed out that in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on May 5, 2000, the government had admitted that the national steering committee on textbook evaluation — constituted by the department of education in 1991 — had considered the publications brought out by Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan (used in RSS and VHP–run schools) as “material designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism”. Despite this, there had been no follow–up action in terms of discontinuing the use of such textbooks. 
 

BOX Following the cover story in Communalism Combat, January 2001, independent Rajya Sabha MP and social activist, Shabana Azmi wrote a letter to state chief ministers and education ministers, alerting them to the dangerous implications of the New Curricular Framework for Value Education in a multi–religious, plural and diverse country such as ours.  A copy of CC was enclosed and a brief note attached on the implications that such a curricular policy would have on free and open inquiry, genuine historical learning and democratic and secular values.  The response from several chief ministers has been heartening. When the Union HRD ministry does finally call the education minister’s conference — a statutory obligation since education is a state subject — state chief ministers and education ministers are expected to resist the blatant attempts to saffronise the content of Indian education. Meanwhile, all concerned CC readers are requested to send us any information they wish to be passed on to the MPs Parliamentary Forum at [email protected].