Textbooks and warped mindsets

Full Text
Ordeal by Fire in the Killing Fields of Gujarat
Editors Guild of India Fact-Finding Mission Report

Textbooks and warped mindsets  

Over and beyond the dreadful killings and bestiality in Gujarat and a lowering threshold of tolerance andrestraint, what is deeply worrying is the purveying of hatred and divisive prejudice by narrowly sectariangroups. If wars begin in the minds of men, so do riots. Children, in particular, need to be taught to be goodcitizens and imbued with values conforming to the high ideals of the Constitution. Textbooks and history musttherefore be written and prescribed with due care. 

One of the basic values of the Constitution is Fraternity. Yet one finds some of the books published andprescribed by the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks of poor quality in terms of content, context andstyle. (It would be good to look at other states’ textbooks too). Take for example the Social Studiestextbook for Class 9.

Chapter 9 is on Problems of the Country and their Solution. The very first section (problem?) is “minoritycommunity” (P 93). Children are told that “apart from the Muslims, even the Christians, Parsees and otherforeigners are also recognised as the minority communities. In most of the states the Hindus are in a minorityand Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are a majority in these respective states”. So the Class 9 child is toldthat Muslims and Christians are foreigners and that Hindus are in a minority in most states”.

Reform measures are suggested for the minority community alongside their economic progress. But things cango wrong and lead to communal violence. “Therefore a special riot police force should be raised to tacklesuch explosive situations” and “victims of communal violence also should be properly compensated…”.Here, children are being suggestively told of the perils of communal violence almost as part of everyday life.Barkha Dutt, quoted above, saw a boy of 10 clutching a bottle of petrol at one of the barricades sheencountered on a Gujarat highway when she was asked her religion. What was he going to do with it, she asked.“It’s for self-defence against them”, he said. 

Then we come to “Problems of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes” (P 94). What ails them ? “Theyhave not been suitably placed in our social order, therefore, even after independence they are still backwardand poor. Of course, their ignorance, illiteracy and blind faith are to be blamed for lack of progress becausethey still fail to realise importance of education in life”. The message: the Scheduled Castes and Tribeshave only themselves to blame for their sorry plight. (See Annexure 23). The sections on Women and Anti-SocialActivities are not more inspiring. 

Class 12 students sitting for their Board examinations in Gujarat on April 22, 2002 were put to a grammartest. The English paper asked them to remove the word “if” and rewrite the sentence, “If you don’tlike people, kill them”. This was followed by another question asking students to rewrite a short passage asa single sentence. The passage read:“There are two solutions. One of them is the Nazi solution. If you don’tlike people, kill them, segregate them. Then strut up and down. Proclaim that you are the salt of the earth”. Theconsternation this singularly insensitive question understandably aroused was sought to be assuaged by anofficial explanation that the passage was culled from E.M.Forster’s “Tolerance”, a prescribed text andthat the question paper was set last September by a “minority teacher”. 

A horrified father was reported as saying his son had come home agitated and asked whether he should disownall his Muslim friends. “We are at a loss for words to explain things to him”, the distraught parent said.(Asian Age, April 23, 2002).  The framing of school curricula has become a subject of controversy oflate. Gujarat is planning to revamp its curriculum, which is by no means objectionable in itself. But againthe spirit that animates it is important. On January 26, 2002, the first anniversary of the great earthquakethat devastated parts of Gujarat last year, the State Education Department issued a circular to schools toobserve “Dharti Puja”, enclosing a list of shlokas by which to propitiate the Mother Goddess. This asIndia enters the 21st millenium and needs to move fast forward rather than backwards. (See Annexure 12, P32-35).  

There have even been reports of betting over the riots. Bookies have been placing bets on who would startriots and where and whether the Gujarat riots would spread to Rajasthan. There has been betting on the deathtoll. (Times of India, April 10).

So now we have rioting as a blood sport.