The National Education Policy of 2020 had one salient feature that has now begun taking form. NEP 2020 stated that reduction in curriculum would be given prime importance. This was, in part, an attempt to lessen the burden on school students and make education in India concise, pointed and actually beneficial in terms of skill development. A focus on practical implementation meant that the era of mugging up theories and entire textbooks was over. Yet, to many, this reduction in curriculum when it is now being effectuated, comes as a painful surprise.
The surprise, meanwhile, has a colour – saffron. If one were to look at recent media reports and purported ‘investigations’ by leading news organisations, it would not be difficult to notice the subtle hints being dropped by certain journalists and their employers. The ruling dispensation in India, we are to believe, is leading an effort to ‘saffronise’ education – a long-held dream of the BJP and its parent organisation, the Sangh Parivar. History textbooks, we are being told indirectly, are now being fidgeted with by the RSS at the behest of the Modi government.
A major point of contention for disgruntled folk within the media fraternity seems to be the fact that individuals associated with the RSS have been made part of the National Curriculum Framework’s national focus groups working on curriculum changes. They have even counted how many RSS ‘associates’ are a part of the NCF teams working at restructuring curriculum in Indian schools. 24 members with “RSS links”, they say, are part of the national focus groups.
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Many of these individuals have in the past been associated with satellite organisations of the RSS. The national focus groups are responsible for suggesting changes required in the National Curriculum Framework, which will then serve as the foundation for newer editions of NCERT textbooks.
Tainted by Association
Here is why the assertions being made against the people working to revise Indian textbooks are wrong and blatantly malicious. First, so what if these people have in the past been associated with, or continue at present to be in touch with the RSS? Are we being told that those even remotely associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are lesser humans, who do not deserve to contribute to the nation?
Second, why is a particular ecosystem so perturbed by NCERT textbooks being changed? The allegation being made is this: chapters dealing with Islamic empires are being removed from textbooks; or at the very least, diluted. Well, this restructuring of Indian books has been waiting to happen for years now – desperately so. Any self-respecting Indian proud of his or her cultural heritage will tell you that NCERT textbooks have been doing a great disservice to Bharat for decades now.
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Islamic invaders have been glorified; marauders have been presented as drivers of Indian multiculturalism; religious zealots who aimed at proselytising large swathes of this land’s population have been ‘contextualised’ and their atrocities justified if not outrightly whitewashed.
A Historical Wrong Being Rectified
Imagine this, in the 75 years that India has been independent, students of varying generations have been taught about the greatness of Islamic empires in great detail. Every Indian knows about the Delhi Sultanate, the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni, and of course, the Mughal Empire. While some built the Grand Trunk Road, others contributed to making Indian delicacies even more tempting. This romanticisation of invaders has been open and unapologetic. Yet, textbooks have not told us the inherent nature of these invaders and the empires that they set up.
We are told that many of these religious zealots masquerading as emperors were, in fact, ‘secular’ and had some Hindu officials in their durbars. As if that is somehow even remotely compensatory for the mass atrocities that the population of this land had to suffer.
How much focus is laid on the greatness of Indian empires that preceded Islamic invasions or flourished parallel to foreign dynasties? In fact, how much content in textbooks is dedicated to teaching students about the great resistance that Islamist rulers faced in India. How much does an average student in India today know about the Ahoms, the Sikhs and the Marathas?
Chances are, the mere mention of the Vijaynagara Empire, the Guptas, the Cholas and the Chalukyas would evoke an absent reaction from many Indians, especially those who are not from regions where such empires existed.
This is because those who drafted Indian textbooks over the past seven decades were hardly saints. The problem that is arising within a certain ecosystem now is that those responsible for reforming NCERT textbooks have ‘conservative’, or worse still, ‘saffron’ links. That should, in an ideal scenario, automatically make them persona non grata when it comes to the National Curriculum Framework.
Flag bearers of a Marxist worldview framing content for history and social science textbooks has never seemed to be problematic for many in the media. After all, a left-leaning take on Indian history, culture and heritage has been normalised over the past seven decades. The glorification of invaders and concealment of Hindu empires is considered a part and parcel of studying history in India.
Just when a team of people, not aligned with such a view get together to reform textbooks, an entire ecosystem rises to discredit them on an individual level due to their association with the RSS. Their academic achievements, scholarly work and professional acumen be damned – they are all judged on the basis of them somehow being linked to the RSS, who have been given the opportunity to correct historical wrongs by the BJP-led government at the Centre. Their service to the endeavour of fixing textbooks is being made to sound criminal in nature.
Indians today are in dire need of being told about the greatness of dharmic empires that originated and flourished on this land, and were not superimposed by the sword with an intent to eradicate the inherent culture of Bharat. If literature pertaining to Islamic empires is being cut down, removed or being put in the right context, so be it. The vast majority of this country has been waiting for such changes for decades. Those against such reforms can, of course, keep at it. These are definitely tough times for their propaganda to stick around.
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