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January 2000
Cover Story

Other Stories
1) Towards a citizens charter against hate teaching

YOUR CHILD'S FUTURE IN YOUR HANDS

What every teacher, parent and citizen, who does not like biased education, can do

Discomfort, murmurs of discontent,  even downright out  rage, have been the  characteristic responses of many of us  to the quality and content of Indian textbooks – especially those of history and social studies — that have, over the years, reflected sharper and sharper biases apart from being a downright boring read.

The whole process of moulding and putting blinkers on young minds is today a sophisticated political project. The most lethal and venomous versions are being dished out by the extremist RSS–run Bal Shishu Mandirs and Vidya Bharatis  (an NCERT report of 1993 and 1994 has recommended that the textbooks being used by these institutions be summarily withdawn!). 

But what has recently been brought to light (see Communalism Combat, October 1999) is that even the text-books of many ‘mainline’, state education boards and even ICSE board texts are far from immune. These texts have, particularly since the early eighties, seen a successful reflection of gender-driven, communally-motivated and caste–biased approach that has been commonly associated with only RSS-run educational institutions or many Muslim madrassas.
In short, the Indian text-book on history and social studies, in particular, has begun to effectively reflect the larger Indian political reality. A reality dominated by a strong right-wing discourse that openly admits to a hate–driven, ‘enemy-making project’ within who’s scheme education, especially selectively interpreted and taught history with it’s divisive potential, has been exploited to the fullest.

This kind of text–book that now exists in almost all state and many central boards of education is the ultimate, physical manifestation of the violence-driven, ‘hate–project’ of the right. Other recent moves by the central human resources development ministry headed by the RSS hard–liner, Murli Manohar Joshi, that include the appointment of a former killer to the NCERT committee on education, and the selection of ideologues of the Hindu right to head other Central government institutions lends an added, biting urgency to the whole issue. 

While discontent on the selective content and orientation of our text-books and curricula has simmered in the past, parents and teachers in the country have remained mute spectators and the children victims of these developments. 

They/We hardly lodged a protest with the government or state or central education boards when our text-books were doctored and changed. They/We did not openly stake their/our rightful claims for a say in the kind and quality of education they/we want for their children. 

But finally this has begun to happen. We can see the beginnings of a movement against biased and distorted text–books emerging in Gujarat and, more gradually, in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. We are anxiously looking forward to responses from Andhra Pradesh. The Hyderabad Book Trust is translating the CC cover story of October 1999 into Telugu (a Gujarati translated version is already available) for a Teacher’s Workshop this month. 

At this stage, a few months after CC projected the issue  (following the research work done through KHOJ, Sabrang’s ‘education for a plural India’ project), we see the makings of a national campaign. We believe that the issue of ‘what kind of text–book’ and the broader issue of the content and orientation of our education is up for scrutiny. Parents and teachers are beginning to take a pro-active role and demanding change.

In Gujarat, where the campaign is well under way, several workshops with teachers have been undertaken to first, painstakingly identify the blatant bloomers and, second, to jointly explore alternatives. 

Our experience with teachers over the past five years, conducting intense workshops on “How and Why I Teach History” has shown up an unhappy lot of professionals but who as a group are reluctant to directly challenge the system. This is hardly surprising given the bureaucratic, passive thrust of our education system that generates no excitement and unveils few challenges. On the contrary, it subjects the carriers of that system to silent subservience. 

Teachers teach the young, for their entire careers sometimes, governed by the limitations in the education policy (perspective), the syllabus (mapping of approach) and the text–book (content). The enterprising and vivacious among them find a way around these limitations, often exploring exciting new avenues. But given the examination-driven, status quoist orientation of our system, these experiments remain isolated from each other. The wider teaching community rarely benefits from many of these path–breaking innovations.

‘What Kind of Shivaji do you take into the classroom?’ ‘How do you depict the journey of faiths and ideas across boundaries and regions?’ ‘How do you tell the story of technological innovations and exchanges that have enriched human development but also, when indiscriminately applied, caused unspeakable environmental damage? ‘How do you portray the early medieval and medieval ages of history that brought Islam to Indian shores long before the advent of the Mahmud of Ghazni?’

These are the questions that must accompany any critical examination of the text–book. It is such critical, touchy questions that force introspection in the teacher and the parent. Side by side, an exploration of the text and syllabus continues. 

Given our experience with the manner in which the responses to the Campaign on Distorted Textbooks emerged and is growing, we feel that there is space for each one of us, readers of Communalism Combat, to actively participate and enrich this campaign. 

Actively engaging in interactions with the schools that our children attend, or those that exist in our neighbourhoods, or within which we are employed, is the first step. 

These interactions should centre around discussions on the content of the texts, the orientation of the teachers and encourage involvement of parents and teachers, together, in the teaching-learning process. All this conscientisation and mobilisation should be geared to action-related protests on the issue.

Involvement in the way our schools are run — whether it is the school of our child or the neighbourhood’s children — opens up possibilities for discussion and deliberation on alternatives. Few spaces exist for such discourse. Teachers are given scant opportunity to put their heads together with colleagues at the school and ruminate on the “hows and whats of teaching.” If such a system were to be introduced, management-related structural issues could be sorted out in a participative way. More importantly, the content of education and the orientation of the teacher would also be under quiet scrutiny.

What exactly do we mean? The Indian history or social studies text is grossly unimaginative and limiting. It has the capacity to generate misconceptions and stereotypes about sections of the Indian population (see CC, October 1999). 
It would be a worthwhile exercise for the Indian parent to participate actively in the process of identifying such biases in interactive sessions with the teacher and the school, all the while pointing out the reasons behind the concern for such a doctored education. The effort would help us understand how a biased orientation in the text–book, and sometimes in teaching itself, fuels the conflict outdoors in civil society.

If our texts help conjure foreign, demon–like images of certain sections of the Indian population, be they Christian, Muslim, or Dalit, it requires no great psychological analysis to deduce that that is precisely how our children will form reflective images of these sections of the Indian population.

If the same texts glorify the Varna system while remaining silent on the social and economic exploitation of Dalits, who constitute 16 per cent of modern–day India, the motives of the text–book writer and the education board is apparent. The writers and generators of such texts are trying at least to create a future citizenry and consciousness who are blind to Indian social reality. 

If the proverbial ‘Rajput’s Respect for Women’ includes a description of how the girl child was killed in Rajput society at birth, is it any wonder that the Indian myth of being a tolerant society that respects it’s women — never mind the gory instances of violent crimes within the family (dowry-related) and outside against women — gets effectively perpetuated?

Upheavals in Indian civil society over the past two decades have blatantly and crudely spilt into the classroom. Such situations have severely strained the image of the teacher among the taught. Often roles have been reversed, with the teacher straining for sanity while some of the parents have been the source from whence the vitriol emanates. 

The moment interactive consultations on content, orientation and thrust within the school (that is between teachers of an institution themselves) and with the school and the wider community of parents and citizenry begins, a critical issue that has lain simmering for decades will begin to get addressed. 

Stories and anecdotes about ‘India Inside Its Classrooms’ span spine–chilling territory in the last two decades. 

Enter a classroom in UP’s Meerut district in late 1987 and you would find the divisions and hatreds created by adults blurring the clear vision of the child. Two years later, in Bihar’s Bhagalpur, rumours and myths dominated school and classroom discourse, affecting genuine inquiry and the resolution of violent conflict. Again children were helpless victims. 

There were isolated voices of brave resistance and opposition, of individuals and small groups who gleaned the facts and documented the developments. However, these instances of resistance did not emerge into a national campaign. 

Come December 1992–January 1993 all over the country, in Mumbai especially and adults, teachers and parents fell victim again. Those who resisted again stood more or less alone. There was this one teacher who coldly told a child returning to class after ten days’ absence, “How come you are here? Have you not gone to Pakistan yet?” In stark contrast, one of Mumbai’s elite institutions could not resist ‘pressures’ from influential, moneyed parents who got their child to distribute VHP pamphlets inside the school spilling venom and double–speak.

Once a campaign against Doctored Textbooks emerges and grows, many of these related issues will have to automatically, as a spin-off, get tackled. When we speak of doctored history we are pointing out the political motive to drive wedges and suspicions amongst our people and it’s far-reaching, poisonous impact. It is impossible to speak about or protest against a biased text–book without addressing the more complex issue of bias in the vision and interpretation of the adult, be it the teacher or the parent.

Often, given the way political winds blow, in the initial phases of such a campaign, lone voices will bravely speak, experiencing isolation. This isolation at the individual/local level will dissipate if we know that we are part of a wider, ongoing campaign. That we can join hands articulating local and regional issues of text-book related content at the state and national level. It is in this effort that we are asking our readers to actively join.

Close scrutiny of the text–books being used in the schools where we live and work will lead us into initiation of pro-active explorations that explore the sensitive area of conflict education. Finally we will be in a position to consolidate these moves  into an action-programme to register our protest against existing texts and initiate a dialogue with the text–book boards on the urgent need for alternatives. 

This is how the campaign is emerging in Gujarat. After three successful and extremely intensive workshops with teachers from Ahmedabad and all over the state, a memorandum on the issue is ready. This document will be the focus of a statewide signature campaign that will culminate in an appointment with the Gujarat State Text–Book Board. To mobilise signatures and share information on the issue of ‘How Text–books Teach Prejudice’ a booklet is in circulation all over the state in Gujarati. 

We are hopeful that a similar campaign emerges in Uttar Pradesh. We have requested many of the schools with whom we are associated in Mumbai to also explore such a strategy. In Andhra Pradesh, too, such an initiative has been undertaken. 

As a culmination of this effort in several states, we are hopeful that the national campaign will culminate in a serious attempt to seek redressal from the Indian judiciary. At the end of the campaign, offensive paragraphs or sections of some texts will propel us into litigation. If passages of text-books in India run contrary to the basic tenets of equality, fair play, and freedom of religion that are intrinsic values within the Indian Constitution, surely any citizen of India, a teacher or a parent in particular, can demand that such a text be immediately withdrawn?
We urge all our readers to join this campaign. More than ever before we believe that you hold “Your Child’s Future In Your Hands.” 
 

                                                                                 Teesta Setalvad

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