Your horse is an ass, sir
- By H.Y. Sharada Prasad (The Asian Age, 6th November 2002)
 
 
The government is very pleased that the Supreme Court has decided in favour of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in the textbook case.

The verdict has been interpreted as a slap in the face of secularists. The critics had contended that the social science textbooks for Classes VI and IX newly issued by the Council dealt with religion in a way that violated the secular spirit of the Constitution. The court struck down their contention and held that textbooks were well within their rights to refer to religions.

The newspapers had given only a brief summary of the portions that had been objected to. I decided to have a peek at the books to form my own assessment. I have just completed reading the Class VI book and I must confess I am appalled by its quality. It is so puerile, so inane, so incompetently written that it is hard to believe that a set of people calling themselves teachers and educationists could have written it. Every textbook cannot be brilliant but it must reveal a certain basic minimum of knowledge and competence. Thousands of children read a textbook. With NCERT books the number of buyers may run into lakhs if not millions. One has a right to expect them to incorporate pedagogical insights and most certainly to avoid elementary blunders of spelling and grammar. The book I have just had the pain of reading fails all these tests. It seems to be the handiwork of some unskilled labourers passing off for educational experts. It brought to mind a line I had read in an Elizabethan play: "Your horse is an ass, sir!"

It is but right that I should give some examples. The copy I went through bears the identification number ISBN 81-7450-007-3 and was published in September 2002. The director of the NCERT recently told the press that a revised edition had been brought out which incorporated the corrections the public had pointed out. My copy is evidently not the corrected edition. It might so happen that some of the mistakes or inanities I shall be pointing out have been taken care of. But a friend who is in the education line tells me that the corrections have not been extensive.

Yet another preliminary disclaimer. The Social Sciences textbook for Class VI is called India and the World. It consists of three "units" — I. THE EARTH OUR HABITAT (48 pages), II. PEOPLE AND SOCIETY IN THE ANCIENT PERIOD (92 pages), and III. COMMUNITY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT (25 pages). The public interest litigation dealt basically with the portions on religion which appear in a couple of chapters in this book and more extensively in the Class IX book, the title of which is Contemporary India. But the examples I am going to give are more from Unit I of the Class VI book which deals with as non-controversial a subject as astronomy.

The Introduction to the first "unit" tells us: "Earth is our home. This planet belongs to a larger family, which is called the solar family. The sun is at the center of this solar family. This was profounded by Aryabhatta long before it was presented by Copernicus and later confirmed by Galileo Galilei... After obtaining the basic knowledge about the earth and the family, we will learn briefly about the continents, oceans and various land farms that prevails on our planet." (The original spelling and grammar — profounded, land farms that prevails — have been retained. Note that the names of Aryabhatta, Copernicus and Galileo have been flung at the children without any preparation.)

Some sentences from the chapter:

Page 3: "The sun and all these twinkling bodies are called stars. You may wonder, what stars are?... A group of stars forming various shapes is called constellation. In India ancient people observed these shapes. Saptarishi is one such constellation. It is a group of seven stars, i.e. seven sages. Saptarishi forms part of the constellation of the Big Bear." (The young students are left to guess the relationship between the seven sages and the bear.)

Page 4: "A galaxy has billions of stars very close to one another. There are billions of such galaxies in the universe... But, where from the sun came? Scientists believe that the sun has been formed from a moving cloud of gases, which is called Nebula."

Page 10 (from the chapter "How the Globe and Maps Help Us"): "In the past, globes used to be rather difficult to carry. But now, we have folded globes, which can be inflated. Such globes can be used as we use air pillows/balloons. They have become more handy than before. Nowadays, there are globes which show various relief features like mountains, plateaus and plains. We can feel them by our hands."

Page 11: "You will be surprised to know that the earliest map which we know about, was made in 2300 B.C." And two sentences later, in the same little paragraph of four sentences, "Some of these maps were made as early as 2200 B.C."

Page 12: "Distance is a very important component of any map. Therefore, a scale is chosen for this purpose. What is a scale? Scale is the proportion or ratio between the actual distance on the ground or the earth’s surface and the same distance shown on the map."

Page 34: "If you look at the globe, you will find that India is situated in the Northern Hemisphere. Why? The Tropic of Cancer passes almost through the centre of our country. It divides India into almost two equal halves." No explanation is offered about why India is in the Northern Hemisphere; the child is not told at all that the whole of India lies above the Equator. Nor is the relationship between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer explained. But the following paragraph on the same page says: "If we take note of the longitudinal extents, India lies east of the Prime Meridian. Therefore India is considered an eastern country because of its situation in the Eastern Hemisphere."

The next paragraph on page 34 contains the astounding statements: "You will find, India is situated on the international highway of trade and commerce, linking East with the West. India is well connected with South-West Asia, Africa and Europe and even North and South America through the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope. India is connected with South-East Asia and Australia as well."

Chapter 7, "OUR CLIMATE, NATURAL VEGETATION AND WILDLIFE", opens with the sentence: "India is called the land of Monsoon Climate." Para 2 goes on helpfully to explain: "Most of our rain is brought by the monsoon winds. That is why India is called the land of monsoons... Therefore, climatically monsoon is a very important phenomenon. Since it affects our lives and livelihood its timely arrival is very important." A mere three paragraphs later we are again reminded in a paragraph titled "Season of Advancing Monsoon": "This is the rainy season. We get about 80 per cent of our total rainfall during this period. Our crop production depends very much on this season. This is also known as monsoon season." But the authors make no attempt to explain the uniqueness of the monsoon or tell us how the pattern of rain in India differs from the pattern in other countries.

Schools all over the world are making an effort to inculcate in children an appreciation of the need to protect forests. The book devotes only a short paragraph, on page 44, to the subject under the sub-heading: "Why Do We Need Forests?", which tells us "We have been felling trees ruthlessly for various reasons i.e. for expansion of agriculture or industries or for settlements. It has destructed our natural vegetation to a large extent. Depletion of forests causes soil erosion. This in turn reduces navigability of rivers. This is a major cause behind the havoc of floods we experience in our country. Forests provide us varied natural resources."

The paragraph on forests is followed by one on wild life. It contains a rare example of the authors’ sense of humour: "The Deer is the most universal variety of wild life, which can be seen in most of the forests of our country. Monkeys are also very common, playful but at times mischievous friends of yours. Aren’t they?"

The next "unit", which attempts to give glimpses of world history, is not without its share of bloomers and illiteracies. But I’ll keep my word and not go into them. The general intention seems to be to implant the idea in the minds of young people that India has had an unbroken civilisation stretching back 8,000 years and that scholars have come to accept that the Harappan Civilisation was the same as the Vedic Civilisation. There also seems to be an attempt to deny that there was a rigid caste system. "Brahmanism" is lauded for its concern with intellectual pursuits. Since these points have been discussed widely in the country, I shall cite just one paragraph on page 134 which brings out the brief which appears to have been given to the NCERT by the present government: "In Hinduism, philosophy has always occupied a very high position. Philosophy deals with such knowledge as what is God? What is soul? What are living beings? Where do people go after death? What is life? And so on. Upanishads are the greatest works of philosophy in the history of humankind. Upanishads do not give emphasis on rituals but on philosophy and knowledge."

The book provides proof, if such proof were needed, that every government, every "research" organisation gets the "experts" it needs to put forward its point of view. But the question that arises is whether it is necessary to abandon professionalism. Could NCERT not have engaged competent copy editors and proof readers? Does reverence for the Upanishads justify liberties being taken with Sanskrit words and the misspelling of "vanaprastha" as "vanprastha", "Nataraja" as "Natraja" and "dharmashastras" as "dharmashashtras"?

There is one other point that is often overlooked. With the growth of television, the Internet, and other sources of information, the number of Class VI students who are better informed than their teachers is increasing. Poorly written textbooks result in the younger generation’s lack of regard for authority.

The courts can be moved to ensure that the air we breathe in our towns is cleaner. But they cannot be appealed to for improving the quality of the books our people write. They can intervene only if a book is seen to threaten somebody’s basic rights. But public ridicule can make institutions and individuals perform better.

H.Y. Sharada Prasad was formerly an adviser to the Prime Minister