The Telegraph
March 4 , 2009
STUDIES IN HATE
The Union government has proposed a law to set up a National Textbook Council to ensure that school textbooks do not promote religious or ideological divisiveness. But critics are lambasting the move already, reports V. Kumara Swamy
People of a particular community living in the border areas of Rajasthan successfully carry out smuggling, spying and other anti-national activities. They get political patronage from both sides of the border.” So reads a passage from the Class X social science textbook in Hindi prepared by the Rajasthan Madhyamik Shiksha Board, clearly alluding to a minority community in the region.
In the same book, there’s a chapter on fascism that extols the “virtues” of the system. It says, “Fascism does away with the demerits of democracy. In situations of crisis, immediate decisions are required and fascism is appropriate for it. The spirit of nationalism develops through fascism.”
You may be surprised that a school textbook contains such questionable statements. However, educationists say that instances of textbooks promoting religious and ideological divisiveness are quite common these days.
Mythological characters are presented as historical figures in state schools in Gujarat, while in Rajasthan Hindu deities are described as being worshipped by all Indians. Legal experts say that these representations are in violation of Article 28 of the Constitution that says, “…no religious instruction shall be imparted in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds.”
But people may soon find it difficult to get away with such infringements. The ministry of human resource development is mulling a new law to set up a National Textbook Council (NTC) that will oversee the content of school textbooks. “We need a filter in place to stop the communal virus being spread through textbooks and NTC could do that,” says educationist Zoya Hasan who headed the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE)’s committee on regulatory mechanism for textbooks in private schools.
CABE, which comprises central and state government representatives and experts, is the highest advisory body on education. Talking about the NTC, the CABE committee had noted that the body “must be independent of any organisation involved in textbook preparation, and also be fully autonomous so as to genuinely represent civil society and academia.”
Legal cases involving alleged communal or objectionable content in school textbooks are legion. But there is no specific law to deal with the issue as yet. Girish Patel, senior advocate, Gujarat High Court, who has argued several such cases, reveals that more often than not they have to be fought citing violation of fundamental rights and the laws on secularism.
For instance, in cases where textbooks were perceived to have represented minority communities in a “bad light,” Patel cited Article 15 of the Constitution, which says that “the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.”
Patel believes that the content of some textbooks in states like Rajasthan and Gujarat are also in clear violation of Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code that prohibits “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.”
When Nirantar, a Delhi-based organisation, conducted a study of textbooks in several states, including West Bengal, it found that many of them contained religious and ideological biases in tune with the political affiliation of the respective state governments. “Strangely, the biases were not limited to social science or history textbooks. Sanskrit as a language is presented as if it ought to be studied by only one section of the community, whereas that shouldn’t be the case. Such issues should also be addressed by the NTC,” says Purwa Bharadwaj, co-ordinator, Nirantar.
Experts say that if the government does pass a law to set up a National Textbook Council, the law should also include punitive measures to deal with violations. “The NTC should not be a toothless entity,” asserts Patel. “It should have the authority to pull up erring bodies, whether they are educational institutions or publishers.”
K.N. Panikkar, the historian who headed the Textbook Review Committee in Kerala after a controversy on a school textbook recently, also feels that the NTC ought to be a strong organisation with punitive powers. “It should be a law with a national perspective. It should furnish the NTC with judicial powers just like the Minorities Commission and other similar organisations,” says Panikkar.
According to preliminary reports, once the NTC is formed, it would be mandatory for all textbook publishers to send copies of their books to the council for vetting.
However, voices of dissent have already been raised against the proposed law. Says Ramachandra Rao, co-convenor of the BJP’s legal and legislative cell, “This will be in clear violation of the federal structure of our Constitution. By imposing the NTC on the states, the Centre is taking away the prerogative of the states to set their own education policy.”
Adds D.N. Batra, vice-president, Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, a right-wing organisation that runs Vidya Bharati schools across the country, “The interpretation of textbook content depends on the opinion of the writer. For instance, history textbooks in central schools depict people like the Sikh guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and Maratha king Shivaji, as plunderers, whereas we have a different opinion of them. Surely, that opinion ought to be respected.” He adds that private schools would resist the government’s efforts if it resorts to what he terms “censorship.”
But legal experts say that attempts to describe this government initiative as “censorship” would not amount to much. “This doesn’t amount to any kind of censorship as the government is merely ensuring that textbooks meet the ideals set in our Constitution. But if the council is given extraordinary powers like prescribing textbooks for private schools, that could be challenged in courts. But first we have to see what kind of powers are given to it,” says Rajindar Sachar, former chief justice of the Delhi High Court and now a Supreme court advocate.
Of course, everyone agrees that any legislation to standardise content is bound to be hotly contested because of the vested interests at play. “Textbooks are a complex issue. The Centre and the states have their own agendas depending on their party affiliations,” says Asghar Ali Engineer, director, the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. “But because the Centre funds most of the education projects in the states, it can set up such a council. But at best, the council can have the power to proscribe a textbook that it considers is in violation of our secular Constitution.”
Though the law may take a while in coming — it has been mooted by an outgoing government — there is little doubt that an autonomous watchdog like the NTC would go a long way in promoting the values of secularism and plurality in our school textbooks.
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