A national convention organised by SAHMAT triggers fresh debate on the communalisation of education 

BY TEESTA SETALVAD

It was a case of David taking on Goliath. It took a three-day national convention organised by 
SAHMAT on August 4-6 in New Delhi to galvanise the state education ministers of nine states against the distinctly sectarian new education curricular policy announced by Murli Manohar Joshi’s HRD ministry in December 2000 (see CC Jan 2001). The heated nationwide debate that the convention generated dominated newspaper headlines for well over a month. During a heated discussion in Parliament, the HRD minister attempted side-tracking the issue on hand. This was countered by a news conference addressed by noted historian, Professor Romila Thapar and Prabhat Patnaik on August 21.
After two days of deliberations among academics and activists on August 4 and 5, attended by over 500 delegates from the length and breadth of the country, on the final day the state education ministers of several states endorsed a strong statement against the Centre’s policy to hegemonise educational curriculae and textbooks. 

The states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, Delhi, Pondicherry, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal were unequivocal in not simply endorsing the statement but making sharp individual presentations on the occasion. Days after the Convention Against the Communalisation of Education, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya took the initiative to call a state education minister’s meet, something that in fact the Union HRD ministry is constitutionally bound to do. 
The major issues discussed at the convention included the new curricular document of the central government, the content of textbooks in different parts of the country as also the serious dangers posed to the development of a scientific temper through the introduction of courses like Vedic Astrology and Vedic Mathematics.

It has been repeatedly pointed out by Communalism Combat and KHOJ, which have made this issue a subject of a two-year-old campaign (see CC, October 1999, January 2000, January 2001), that the systematic homogenising of public discourse including clear attempts to introduce a divisive ‘us’ versus ‘them’ discourse within school texts, especially those dealing with history, contains within it a dangerous potential that is already discernible in the text books of different state and central educational boards. Even after the Rajasthan government had endorsed the statement at the SAHMAT convention, anomalies contained in the textbooks in that state came to light. This also resulted in the arrest of the textbook publisher and an enforced revision of the textbooks overnight.

While the nation-wide campaign had managed to focus attention on this critical agenda, two dissenting notes threatened to sidetrack the campaign. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh, whose support to the campaign was earlier evident in the presence of his education minister, R. Solomon at the Sahmat convention on August 6, 01 came out with a public statement expressing support to the introduction of ‘Vedic Astrology’ at the university level. At the same time, the chief minister of Kerala, AK Anthony struck another dissenting note by attempting to draw a distinction between the use of the word ‘saffronisation’ and ‘communalisation’ of the education policy. He argued that the colour saffron has strong emotional resonances for Hindus, and attacking the new education policy using the word “saffronisation” could alienate majority sentiments. Having expressed such views on “Vedic Astrology” and the issue of “saffronisation”, where the two chief ministers and the Congress party stand on the serious issue of the communalising of education remains to be seen. 

Meanwhile, a strong statement signed by over 100 leading Indian scientists against the introduction of esoteric subjects at the university level reads thus: “The scientists and mathematicians are deeply concerned that the essential thrust behind the campaign to introduce so-called ‘Vedic Mathematics’ and ‘Astrology’ at the university level by the UGC has more to do with promoting a particular brand of religious majoritarianism and associated obscurantist ideas than with any serious development of mathematical or scientific teaching in India... So Called Vedic Mathematics is neither Vedic nor mathematics… and will condemn particularly those dependent on public education to a sub-standard mathematical education and will be calamitous to them.”

Among the prominent astronomers and scientists who signed the statement are JV Narlikar (director, Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics), Yashpal (eminent space scientist and former chairperson, UGC) SG Dani (senior professor, School of Mathematics, TIFR).