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each of the earlier history textbooks, the ones that had been withdrawn during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.