http://www.satribune.com/archives/sep23_29_02/opinion_bidwai.htm

Row Brewing on Pro-Hindu Slant in Textbooks
Praful Bidwai
Issue No 10, Sept 23-29, 2002

NEW DELHI: A major conflict is brewing in India on the issue of education and religion,thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last week that upheld a controversial move by thefederal government to rewrite school textbooks by giving them a Hindu-chauvinist slant.

The conflict is unlikely to remain limited to a tussle between secularists, who make up a majority of the population if one goes by social attitude and political choice, and Hindu nationalists represented mainly by the Right-wing religious-sectarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which leads New Delhi's multi-party ruling coalition.

The issue has a federal devolution dimension too. Many Indian states are up in arms over what they see as blatant federal interference in their school curricula without consultation or consent.

The controversy has major implications on the rights of the child to unbiased information,and for the issue of tolerance and respect for difference in the plural, multi-cultural, multi-religious society of 1 billion people in this country.

Under the Supreme Court ruling, India's children will grow up being taught a viciously prejudiced version of history that exclusively privileges India's ''Hindu past'' while berating its ''non-Hindu'' periods. Also at stake are civic values and notions of citizenship.

India's education system primarily uses government-recommended textbooks, whether in state-run or private schools. These are approved by the Central Board for Secondary Education through a multiple-stage process involving consultation among teachers, experts and officials, and between the federal government and states.

 Pivotal to the process is the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), which is a  104-member body consisting largely of state representatives and independent experts, and  the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an ''autonomous'' body   that  draws up the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) based on the National Education Policy.

Following this framework, detailed syllabi for each class and subject are formulated. The textbooks ultimately follow the syllabi. CABE, established in 1920, approves the National Curriculum Framework. Although not a statutory institution, its function and authority are considered indispensable.

Without it, the states' views would be excluded from the curriculum-textbooks process, a situation that would mean dangerous over-centralisation in this country of 33 states and territories.

The source of the controversy is the National Curriculum Framework produced by NCERT two years ago, and the textbooks being written now under that plan. CABE did not approve the framework, and yet the government arbitrarily imposed it on the Central Board of Secondary Education.

The Vajpayee government never convened CABE. Instead, it packed NCERT in 1998-99 with known supporters of the Hindu-chauvinist ideology, who systematically and brazenly hijacked the curriculum by introducing the concept of ''value education'' centred on religion.

Then, in November 2000, ignoring stiff opposition from teachers, scholars, and from one-half of India's states, the government declared the curriculum framework ''approved'', and thrust it down the throats of the school education boards.

The willful short-circuiting and sabotage of democratic procedure is only one ground on which the government was challenged in a public interest petition in the Supreme Court.

The petition was filed by three eminent citizens, including an award-winning right-to-information activist, a social scientist, and a journalist-policy commentator. The group's composition is interesting: two Hindus, of which one is married to a Muslim, and one Christian.

The petitioners' second substantial ground was that the NCF militates against the principles of secularism, equality, right to education and to development, embedded in India's Constitution.

Under the Constitution, the state cannot favour a religion or religious denomination or support religious instruction -- a sound principle drawn from the U.S. Constitution. Article 28 of the Constitution prohibits ''religious instruction'' in educational institutions fully managed out of state funds.

The National Curriculum Framework has numerous formulations which, however subtly, favour religion and spiritual notions. It roots its own philosophy in these. It holds that religion is ''a major source'' of ''universal'' or ''essential'' values to be inculcated though education.

Thus, it says, ''what is required today is à education about religions, their basics, the values inherent therein and also a comparative study of the philosophy of all religions. These need to be inculcated à right from the primary years à Students have to be given (sic) the awareness that the essence of every religion is common, only the practices differ.''

This is a major departure from the National Policy on Education of 1986, which speaks of fostering ''universal and eternal values'', without mentioning religion.

India's Supreme Court has itself held in any number of cases that ''religion cannot be mixed with any secular activity of the State. In fact, the encroachment of religion into secular activities is strictly prohibited.''

However, the National Curriculum Framework insinuates religion into secular education. The strong bias in favour of one specific religion - Hinduism -- is evident in its school syllabi.

These syllabi and the textbooks based on them have drawn sharp criticism because they blatantly depict Hinduism as the ''essence'' of Indian culture and other religions as ''alien'' or ''invaders' '' faiths.

They glorify history through falsehood and distortion, presenting India as the world's best or ''master'' civilisation, denying the validity and value of other great civilisations.

They depict Hindu gods Rama and Krishna not as mythological, but historical, figures. They minimise the caste system and its corrosive influence on Indian society. In place of advocating sexual equality, they talk of taking the ''best'' about each ''gender'' from tradition.

Even more laughably, the NCF speaks of differentiating gifted students on the basis of their ''spiritual quotient'' -- defined nowhere, but clearly a dubious idea -- as well as their ''intelligence quotient'', a thoroughly discredited concept.

These questionable propositions about the nature of India, about religion and education have had loathsome effects in textbooks: deletion of whole periods of history, exclusion of Islam and Sikhism in the list of ''major religions'', distorted presentation of feudal-era wars between kings as ''national'' wars fought by Hindus against Muslims.

There was a compelling case for ruling against the existing curriculum framework and for reformulating it on a democratic and secular basis, but the Supreme Court dismissed it.

By endorsing the curriculum that allowed the rewriting of textbooks, the Supreme Court has allowed itself to be seen as ideologically partisan toward those who drew up the curriculum framework.

This is a cruel blow to citizens fighting for secularism -- barely six months after the Gujarat pogrom against Muslims and amidst the BJP's hate campaign against India's religious minorities consisting of 180 million people.