Reason, emotion and history
(In March 1994, as
part of our campaign to track the parochial processes that deter even ‘secular’
governments from fair explorations into history, we had interviewed Dr Arvind
Deshpande, then chairman of the Maharshtra State Text Book Board. We reproduce
excerpts from that exchange)
Since its inception in 1980–81, the
main objective before the Maharashtra State Text Book Bureau that we were part
of was that the ‘secular element should be jousted up in our history books…’
Shivaji, for example, has always been depicted as a Hindu hero. But the moment
you do this, unknowingly, unconsciously, the bias creeps in.
For the first four to five
years we were extremely conscious of this. So we did our utmost to remove these
biases in order to prevent their creeping into the curriculum. Soon enough, we
were faced with the consequences — opposition either from the minority or the
majority community.
This was our bitter experience
with a Std. IV textbook. In 1986, with the introduction of the New Education
Policy, the entire syllabus was revised. In history, too, new elements were
added: Regional History, Indian Culture and Civics. In preparing and publishing
textbooks, we are severely restricted by the cost factor. As they have to be
affordable for lakhs of SSC students throughout the state, the books are
restricted to 96 pages. Now, while looking at the Std. IV history textbook, we
found that 80 of these 96 pages dealt with Shivaji alone. This left little room
for any other element that we wanted to introduce.
In keeping with our objective
of introducing a new value system, in the revised draft we had to rewrite
portions of it, reduce the section on Shivaji. Professor Bhosale (RR Bhosale,
another bureau member) also agreed. Paragraphs were changed, some re–drafted.
Meanwhile, someone leaked information to the press. Even before the re–drafted
book was released or published, merely on surmises and guesswork, we had to face
a vicious media campaign led by Kesari (Marathi daily). We were charged with
“removing the inspiring part of history and making it insipid.” Until then, we
had only had a trial reading of the book for three days with 60 teachers, two
from each district in Maharashtra. During this, no one seemed to have any
objection. But suddenly, after the vicious campaigns in the press, the same
government that had entrusted us with the task of “jousting the secular and
humanist element in history” completely backed out.
This was in 1991, when the
Sudhakarrao Naik–led minority government was in power. Defending our work on the
floor of the house, the state education minister said that we were only trying
to de–individualise history, that all of Indian history had been
personality-oriented, that history should focus attention on the social forces
at work and not only on individual personalities. But the chief minister
succumbed and promised the agitated legislators, who cut across all party lines,
that not one word in the 25–year–old textbook would be changed. As a result, the
communal overtones remain; the incitement to violence is still there. All the
work that we had put in for the revised draft is lost forever. We were all asked
to surrender our copies to the government.
The key question is, why are
issues of history being raked up again and again?
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