Looking backward

Alook at the history textbooks during the past year shows some curious happenings. On July 20, 2004, the Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) informed Parliament that the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research & Training)’s executive committee had accepted the finding of the historians’ committee set up by the MHRD that the history textbooks brought out by the NCERT since September 2002, to replace the earlier textbooks, were ‘biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies rendering them unsuitable for continuation’.

However, it was decided to continue with those textbooks for the year 2004-05. The NCERT, an organisation set up and controlled by the Indian State, sold the books that it knew to be ‘biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies’ to unwary school students, at a profit (for NCERT books are not produced on a No Profit No Loss basis), thus purveying wares it knew to be defective. The NCERT also provided to each CBSE-affiliated school five copies each of the earlier history textbooks, the ones that had been withdrawn during the MM Joshi-JS Rajput era, except for those meant for Classes IX-X, to be used by teachers and students for reference along with a short advisory.

The advisory bore the title, ‘Learning History without Burden,’ and each copy of the reprinted earlier books carried a stamp: ‘For Reference Only’ as though indicating to the reader that the problem with the books that had been continued for the 2004-05 session was not that they were biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies but that they were a ‘burden’, and that the copies of the earlier textbooks supplied to them were not meant as correctives to the books that were biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies but for reference only (as though cautioning people against reading them). (Is there any book known to the publishing world that proclaims to the world that it is to be used for reference only?) Things that have happened recently are curiouser still. It had been announced last year that for (or is it from?) the 2005-06 session, earlier history textbooks would be restored ‘with appropriate modifications in line with the existing curriculum and minor corrections wherever required’.

The earlier textbooks had been based on syllabi that had been prepared in line with or conformed to the National Curriculum Framework of 1988 while the ‘existing curriculum’, based on the National Curriculum Framework of Secondary Education, NCFSE-2000, had been condemned by historians as providing the basis for an assault on history, and the communalisation of history, and had been truly reflected in the textbooks found to be ‘biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies’.

The entire campaign against the communalisation of education since November 2000 had focussed on the NCFSE-2000 and the syllabi based on it and subsequently on the history textbooks that were brought out after the Supreme Court’s stay was vacated.

Recently, most of the earlier textbooks have been reprinted and ‘restored’. No author connected with these textbooks has made any modification in line with the ‘existing curriculum’. However, the Publisher’s Note that has replaced the earlier Forewords in the history textbooks for Classes VI to X states, "This textbook is based on the National Curriculum Framework for School Education-2000 and the syllabi prepared in accordance with it".

The earlier history textbooks for Classes XI and XII are stated to cover the revised history syllabus prepared by the Neeladri Bhattacharya Committee, a syllabus no author of these books has seen or even heard of. It is not clear if the insult to the authors of pre-BJP period textbooks is unintended.

It may be recalled that a three-member bench of the Supreme Court had heard a PIL challenging the NCFSE-2000. While the Supreme Court had rejected the PIL, two judges of the three-member bench had directed the Union of India to fill the vacancies in the CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) and convene it to give its opinion on the NCFSE-2000. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, who had declared CABE dead, paid no heed to the directive issued by the two judges and took no steps to revive it. The UPA government brought CABE back to life. But, sadly, it disregarded the directive regarding the NCFSE-2000 and did not refer it to CABE, which met in August last year, for its opinion.

It may be recalled that every political party outside the NDA, with the sole exception of the AIADMK, had condemned the NCFSE-2000 at a meeting held in November 2002. The Congress was represented by the present Prime Minister at this meeting. But the NCFSE-2000 and the syllabi prepared in accordance with it continue for the second year after the BJP-led government was ousted.

The CABE, at its meeting held in August last, set up seven committees on different areas of concern in education – But none on curriculum. One of these committees is concerned with ‘Regulatory Mechanism for Textbooks and Parallel Textbooks Taught in Schools Outside the Government System’. The MHRD seems to think that everything about textbooks used in schools inside the government system is fine. The National Steering Committee, which was disbanded by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, had expressed its deep concern at the extremely poor quality of textbooks produced in the country, including those produced by government agencies. There has been no improvement in the situation since that committee presented its report.

A case in point is the set of books brought out with much fanfare by the Delhi government last year. The decision by the Delhi government not to use NCERT’s communalised books and prepare its own had been widely appreciated. The accolades that the Delhi government’s books received, it turns out, were perhaps more the work of public relations rather than of critical appreciation.

At least one of these, the history textbook for Class VIII, would certainly not have been allowed to be published had there been a regulatory mechanism in position. Written by three historians with the present NCERT director as chief adviser, four consultants, two subject advisers (one of whom is also an author) and three language editors, there is absolutely nothing that is right with this book. The language of the book, Hindi, makes the reading a painful activity and there are numerous statements that simply make no sense.

It is impossible to translate into English the flavour of the original Hindi. The term ‘samaj’ is sought to be explained somewhat like this: ‘When this word is used to describe samaj, it tells us some characteristics’. The civil war which took place in Russia after the October Revolution is referred to as ‘asainik yuddh’, because one dictionary meaning of ‘civil’ is ‘asainik’. The Swadeshi movement ‘slowly died (mar gaya)’. The Tenancy Acts enacted by the provincial governments under Congress rule to protect the tenancy rights of peasants are called ‘kirayedar qanoon’.

What about the history that this book seeks to teach? The Industrial Revolution is supposed to have brought in fixed working hours, ‘mostly from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening’. There is no reference to the extreme misery that the Industrial Revolution created and children made to work from 5 in the morning till 8 or 9 in the evening as reported by a British Parliamentary Committee. And if the fixed working hours were from 9 to 6, with facilities for lunch in the canteen, why did the Second International give a call to workers all over the world to demand an eight-hour working day on May Day? This is a book that covers the period of colonial rule (and the freedom struggle) in the country.

There is nothing on the establishment of the system of colonial exploitation, and not even a reference to the new land systems leading to the impoverishment of the peasantry.

However, nothing of the glorious achievements of British rule is missed – books and newspapers, schools and colleges, fulfilling the needs for water through pipes, hospitals and primary health centres, clocks and arrangements for lighting, railways, public buildings, and much more. Among these achievements, the best description is of the supply of drinking water. ‘Water taps were installed in every house (ghar ghar mein). This certainly brought some comfort. It became simpler for people, particularly women, who had to go long distances to fetch water’. But sadly, it had some ‘social implications’. ‘Earlier on the pretext of fetching water, women would go out and chat with their friends. Now such occasions got lessened’. Providing water to every household through pipes and taps was not such a good idea after all!

With all this, why the freedom movement? Was it due to a realisation, real or imaginary, of a basic antagonism between the interests of the Indian people and the British colonial rule? Not really. It was all because of the news about the movements of German and Italian unification in Indian newspapers ‘which were read by Indians involved in the national movement and they were aroused by what they read and they dreamt of doing something similar in India’.

The text abounds in elementary factual inaccuracies that it would be too tedious to list. One example: Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya had contested the election for the Madras legislature in 1926. She lost but no matter for she is stated to have had the honour to be ‘the first woman in the world’ to have contested an election. It is presented as a matter of great honour for Indian womanhood. The reason for the pride is false, if one were to go by facts, for there are quite a number of women, in other countries, who had contested and won elections many years before Kamala Devi contested and lost. Another example from recent history may give readers some idea of the general tenor: Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister in 1991.

What about communalism? This book, along with others, was brought out in order to avoid using communalised versions brought out by the NCERT. However, this book is more or less silent on communalism and its role during the freedom struggle. The word does occur but the meaning given to it doesn’t make it such a bad thing as some of the leaders of the freedom movement and later pseudo-secularists made it out to be. ‘The Hindu Mahasabhaites (there is no reference to the RSS) and Muslim Leaguers were not extremists or hostile to each other’s religion. But during demonstrations sometimes there used to be incidents of communal riots’.

These parties had no role during communal riots or no position regarding the freedom movement; at least none is mentioned. There is a mention of Mountbatten coming to India as Viceroy but none about his Partition plan – the decision to partition the country was taken by Congress. There is a reference in the text to the transfer of power to Pakistan and India but none to Independence. There are two pages devoted to Delhi during 1947 and 1948 and, among others, it is mentioned that Pakistan’s present President Pervez Musharraf and the well known teacher of history at St. Stephens College, Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, migrated to Pakistan.

But there is no reference in the text here or elsewhere to the assassination of Gandhi which, perhaps the authors seem to have forgotten, took place in Delhi. It is mentioned under the heading ‘Some Dates’ on the last page of the book at the end of the chapter on ‘50 Years of Modern Republic’. There was, it would seem, no room in this textbook to say anything about who did it and why and what it meant or what he meant to the people of this country.