RSS-affiliated body’s recommendations
to NCERT part of a larger political design
By HARVINDER AHUJA
A confirmed opponent of Modi rule and Hindutva surge, I have always maintained that the greatest harm they are inflicting is upon the core of this country. The subtle manner in which its roots are being damaged, or its DNA, if it can be called so, being infected, is the severest crime they are committing. The consequences of this diabolical game-plan will be felt in times to come.
A fresh evidence of such misadventures came to light in a report front-paged by The Indian Express in its edition dated July 24, 2017. Of course, the report wasn’t published or didn’t get much prominence in other national dailies, and the captive electronic media gave it a total miss. The subject wasn’t considered worthy enough for a high-decibel studio debate, the hallmark of TV news channels.
The Express report details a list of recommendations the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas has sent to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) which recently invited suggestions from the public on reviewing school textbooks of all classes. Along with five pages of recommendations, the Nyas headed by Dina Nath Batra, a former head of RSS educational wing Vidya Bharati, has attached pages from several NCERT textbooks with the portions that it wants removed marked and underlined.
What should shock the conscience of any level-headed Indian, the Nyas has sought the removal of English, Urdu and Arabic words; a poem by the revolutionary poet Pash and a couplet of Mirza Ghalib; the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore; extracts from painter MF Husain’s autobiography; references to the Mughal emperors as benevolent, to the BJP as a “Hindu” party and to the National Conference as “secular”; an apology tendered by former prime minister Manmohan Singh over the 1984 Sikh riots and sentence that “nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002.”
As if this was not enough, the Nyas has also recommended that the Hindi textbooks must mention that medieval Sufi mystic Amir Khusrau “increased the rift between Hindus and Muslims.” Later, the newspaper elaborates on the key recommendations the Nyas wants carried out in Hindi, Political Science and History school books meant for various classes.
Now, if this RSS-brand of historical perspective we want our school children to imbibe, we will only be producing confused and prejudiced minds. In that sense, we will be doing no different from what General Zia-ul-Haq did to Pakistan with his Islamisation drive that included school textbooks. The context of Pakistani textbooks, the reported inaccuracies of some textbooks and the existence of historical revisionism in them, has been criticised for promoting religious intolerance and Indophobia. According to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, since the 1970s Pakistan’s school textbooks have systematically inculcated hatred towards India and Hindus through historical revisionism.
This is not something which we should be doing to our next generation. And that is what the Hindutva ideologues are attempting to do with their insidious activities. The recommendations submitted by the RSS outfit should be seen in that context. Such actions are only aimed at destroying the secular fabric of the country and creating a wedge in society. Unfortunately, elements like these have become more proactive and emboldened during the past 38 months.
Ever since Mr Narendra Modi ascended the Delhi throne, there has been a perceptible change in the social fabric of the country. The sense of insecurity has increased, intolerance is on the rise and there is vulgar display of fanaticism all around. Political differences apart, there is a pervading tendency to muzzle dissent of all kind in almost every sphere. Those self-appointed guardians of nationalism, be it in TV studios or on the streets, are behaving with increased belligerence and anyone with a contrarian viewpoint is being dubbed as anti-national or traitor.
The supporters of the Modi Government, and that constitutes a large majority, would, of course, dismiss all such talk as vicious propaganda being unleashed by the so-called intellectuals and Left-Liberals. But there is no denying the fact that the national discourse has undergone a sea-change in recent months. Be it the lynching of a middle-age man for his food choice or the gruesome killing of a young boy for his religious identity, there are a whole lot of incidents one can enumerate to buttress the point that intolerance and polarisation are on the rise.
Besides such gory incidents, one can’t ignore the attacks being carried out with increased frequency on the works of art, cinema and culture. While a filmmaker is told to drop certain actors from a film because he/she belong to an ‘enemy nation’, a movie gets into trouble because our moral guardians find it to be “lady-oriented.” As if the mandatory playing of national anthem in cinema halls wasn’t enough to instill patriotism in the heart of citizens, the Vice-Chancellor of JNU has sought the installation of an Army tank in the university campus as reminder of the valour of our jawans at the borders.
The latest attempt by the RSS-affiliated body to impose its thought process on the education system of the country fits this pattern and is part of a larger political design. This must be resisted by all right-thinking Indians.
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