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Saffron surge in education

Agenda at work: As feared, the BJP agenda of saffronisation in education has begun in right earnest
Last Updated 10 January 2015, 21:34 IST

The Ministry of Human Resource Development is mired in controversies. The reasons for controversies are several; but none of them are related to any positive attempt to advance a progressive and scientific education.

Instead, the controversies are around the ministry’s evident but undeclared attempt to lead the nation towards an irrational and unscientific mode. The educational developments during the last 60 years had several weaknesses and deficiencies, but it had one saving grace: it was secular in character. Under the stewardship of Smriti Irani, the Indian education appears to be poised to lose that character.

It is not wholly unexpected, though. During the previous ministry of the National Democratic Alliance ( NDA), presided over by Murli Manohar Joshi, had set out to implement a revivalist agenda. Given the precarious existence of the then government, Joshi was cautious and therefore, conceded some space for discussion. The sweeping success of the BJP has altered the situation. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has taken over the ministry.  Irani is acting out the role of a spokesperson.

The ideological work is central to the agenda of the RSS. Like the fascists in Germany, the RSS’ motto is to “catch them young” for which education is the most effective instrument. Two methods were employed by the RSS to reach out to the young and impressionable. The first was to start schools of their own and second, to infiltrate the existing institutions. Vidya Bharati, an RSS outfit, runs about 50,000 schools and about one lakh Ekal Vidyalayas are under its control. The ministry under Irani plans to increase their number considerably. Given the type of textbooks taught in these schools, the influence of the RSS in the ministry would have long term communal consequences.

A glimpse of what these books would do to the history and culture can be had from the textbooks prepared by Dinanath Batra, an RSS activist. Batra is the history “expert” of the Sangh Parivar. Following a communal interpretation of the past, he completely erases the distinction between history and mythology and romanticises the achievements of the Hindus. To him, India is Hindu which he tries to establish by invoking a Hindu past.

 In other words, he legitimises the RSS version of history in a manner easily accessible to children. The ministry provides administrative support to propagate this version of history. Towards that end, Irani picks people of Hindutva persuasion to fill all important positions in the field of education. The Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) is a good example. The new chairman has been chosen for his Hindutva leanings, rather than his scholarly achievements. One of his early calls in the Council has been the prestigious annual Azad Memorial lecture. This year’s lecture was delivered by an obscure scholar from Europe. The main burden of the lecture was a plea for using “the Ramayana and the Mahabharata” as sources for the study of ancient Indian history. The lecture argued that the only way to understand the modern Indian culture is by interrogating the epics!

History is of particular interest to the Sangh Parivar because their conception of the Indian nation is based on a communal interpretation of the past. The secular history is anathema to them. The ministry is therefore gearing up to give another dose of Hinduised history. The purpose is to define the nation as Hindu by painting everything in saffron. Murli Manohar Joshi started the process by rewriting the NCERT textbooks and Irani is planning to take a few steps forward on the lines suggested by Dinanath Batra. History is being turned into a series of fables.

The first indication of change in the perspective of the ministry was the abrupt termination of the teaching of German in Kendriya Vidhyalayas during mid-semester. What prompted this change was not respect for rules, as is made out to be, but the eagerness to Hinduise the curriculum. The teaching of foreign languages which opens the minds of our children to other cultures is a positive part of our education. It can only strengthen nationalism and not weaken it.

The importance of Sanskrit as classical language is indisputable. So also teaching it in the schools. But it need not be at the expense of foreign languages. It is rumoured that Irani’s ministry is planning to make Sanskrit a compulsory language in the schools which would automatically remove foreign languages from the syllabus. The role of a classical language in school curriculum needs more careful academic consideration.

Our institutions of higher learning have been on a downhill path for quite some time. One of the reasons for this is the infringement of the autonomy of these institutions. The record of the NDA government in this aspect is most deplorable. They have tried to force their intellectual agenda and transform these institutions into their fiefdoms. The first NDA government met with partial success.

If some of the appointments made by the present government are taken into account, the indication is that it plans to follow a similar path with greater vigour. Yet, given the liberal tradition still active in our institutions of higher learning, change can take place only very slowly. That proffers some hope for the survival of the secular ethos in higher education.

But not so in school education which is much more vulnerable to political manipulation. It appears that the MHRD is conscious of this which perhaps accounts for its moving into school education swiftly and urgently. Dinanath Batra may succeed in imparting saffron colour to school education more easily.

The Hindutva educational agenda is not capable of providing sufficient inputs for the development and modernisation Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been advocating. Irani’s ideas are backward looking, conservative and obscurantist. They are not her independent ideas, but imposed by the RSS. In a multi-cultural, multi-religious society, education can cope with the demands of modernity, only if it is based on secularism and democracy. The educational reforms contemplated are communal and divisive.
Education is a matter of national concern as it is integral to the type of society we wish to construct. The Hindutva programme would only alienate the minorities and spread disquiet among them. It would also generate a conservative and obscurantist society. Modi is yet to clarify the nature of modernity he intends to usher in. If it constitutes the making of a rational society, the educational programme pursued by Irani’s ministry is counterproductive.  But then, does Mody have a modern agenda?
(The writer is a noted scholar and an eminent historian)  Controversies and contentious issues so far during HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s tenure June 2015: HRD Ministry forces Delhi University to roll back the Four Year Under-graduate Programme, started during UPA regime.

July 2015: Ministry appoints Sudershan Rao Yellapragada, a retired professor of history, as Chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research, raising many an eyebrow. On assuming charge, Yellapragada vows to support research on ancient Hindu texts to pass on “new knowledge” to the “coming generations”.

 July 2014: UGC revises duration and nomenclature of higher education programmes and issues fresh notification, threatening institutions that any deviation from the prescribed format will attract action against them.

August 2014: UGC asks Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to scrap FYUP but later allows it with changes in nomenclature and structure of the programmes offered by the institute.

August 2015: UGC, IIT standoff
with ministry over duration and specification of programmes.
September 2014: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s televised address to schoolchildren on Teacher’s Day.
Congress as well as a section of academicians and intellectuals question government’s motive.
September 2014: Central Board of Secondary Education seeks students to write essays or poems on Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay to mark the 98th birth anniversary
of BJP ideologue.

October 2014: The NCERT chief Parvin Sinclair resigned, half-way into her tenure, amid allegations that HRD Minister was upset with her for initiating review of national curriculum framework in the last leg of her regime. Her resignation was immediately accepted by minister.

October 2014: The HRD Ministry asks the IITs to examine demand of people associated with RSS for a separate canteen for vegetarian students in their campuses.

November 2014: Smriti Irani announces decision to junk teaching of German as third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas and orders probe into signing of MoU between KV Sangathan and Germany’s cultural institution Goethe-Institute and Max Muller Bhawan. Though ministry clarified Sanskrit will not be compulsory, Irani’s decision effectively makes the language a must of KV students.

November 2014: HRD Ministry appoints Vishram Ramchandra Jamdar, CEO of Kinetic Gears, Nagpur based manufacturing company, as chairman of VNIT (Visvesvarya National Institute of Technology), Nagpur. Jamdar, having RSS background, had praised Irani earlier.

December 2014: HRD Ministry asks schools and higher educational institutions to observe ‘Good Governance Day’ on December 25 to the mark birth anniversary of former Prime Minister A B Vajpaee and freedom fighter MM Malviya. Parliament witnesses Opposition

uproar over schools being ordered by Centre to remain open on Christmas Day.
December 2014: IIT-Delhi director Raghunath K Shevgaonkar resigns halfway into his tenure, amid speculation that he was being pressurised to settle arrears for former faculty of the institute and now BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. 

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(Published 10 January 2015, 21:34 IST)

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