Author: Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Senior
BJP Leader
Publication: Sangh Sandesh
Date: January-February 2002
URL: www.hss-uk.org
The issue of deletion of select
paragraphs from the history texts published by the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) needs to be understood ion the
context of the desperate struggle for self-preservation by a group of scholars.
Historians Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, R.S. Sharma, Bipan Chandra and
others have enjoyed such political backing from Congress that they are
convinced that they alone possess God's gift of the ability to interpret
India's past, and operated as a cartel, preventing others from expressing
alternative viewpoints and thus crippled the flowering debate.
With the state behind them, perceived
opponents were steamrolled and simultaneously impressionable minds were
indoctrinated with the absoluteness of their wisdom. Native truths were
demolished and they perpetuated the foreign masters version of Indian history.
Academics know that recalling the Sikh Guru's contribution in laying down
his life for the war against fanaticism would have been invaluable in the
fight against terrorism but Satish Chandra would not permit that. Similarly,
historian Arjun Dev portrays the Jat community (one of the bravest and
most valorous communities) as humiliated to protect a bigot.
Vir Sanghvi (Talibanising our education,
Nov 25) seems the biggest of these intellectual pretenders, portraying
typical symptoms, using strong words as lackey, Taliban and Chaddiwallah.
Now they are clutching straws as their agenda has been revealed. Sloganeering
over deletion of some portions from NCERT texts has nothing to do with
history, but with control. Their game is to manipulate the unprincipled
opposition of the country - the Congress- Left combine, to advance their
attempted domination of learning institutions that they have dragged to
infamy over 30 years.
Firstly, the Chaddiwallah lackeydirector
of NCERT didn't conceive the idea of deleting the objectionable portion,
but in fact the Congress government of Delhi that first brought those scandalous
lines about Guru Tegh Bahadurji to public attention, passing a resolution
in the Delhi assembly.
Representatives from these communities
applied pressure on NCERT and CBSE to make amends. They did their best
as academics respecting structured learning, i.e. were the young mind is
gradually prepared to accept controversy. Nothing will be removed from
history texts or reference material, but school history lessons need restructuring
to give students a wholesome understanding of their heritage.
This government does not believe
in strangulating free expression. BA and MA students in History continue
to enjoy the freedom to use such reference material. Our "Big" historians
should know which regime in the past imposed emergency when several draconian
acts were committed.
The use of the term "Taliban" is
inaccurate and ridiculous. Cannot the editor of the biggest newspaper in
India tell the difference between a democratically elected government and
a rogue regime exporting terror? If Telibanism represents mind control,
then to find a desi Taliban, I would go east to Kolkata. The "red" government
there has turned the education system on its head, resisting Congress's
New Education Policy. In 1989, it issued a circular (9Syl/89/1), identifying
many 'aushuddo' (impure) historical references, and directed their obliteration
to suit the Marxist approaches to history. Over 50 changes were effected
in school texts published in West Bengal. An example is the booting out
of the Sahaj Path from the Bengali education system after the Marxists
identified it as the root cause of their lack of standing with the Bengali
intellectual elite. Sanghvi should call on the HT Kolkata correspondent
regarding this. And if Talibanisation implies imposition of a dress code
then Sanghvi should also ask his Kolkata colleague about Subhankar Chakraborty,
Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharti University, who banned female students
from wearing salwaar kameez in 1993. He was also given a CPI(M) ticket
for the 1999 Lok Sabha elections.
Removing politically unacceptable
matter from textbooks was developed into a fine art in Rajasthan, when
the state government issued a circular affecting 17 changes, which nobody
called interference then. All references to Arthashastra of the great Chanakya
were deleted, from not just history books but economics books also. Deen
Dayal Upadhyaya's name was deleted from texts in government schools.
Satish Chandra, who wrote the revolting
piece on Guru Tegh Bahadur actually borrowed that infamous line about him
resorting to "plunder and rapine laying waste to the whole Punjab" from
Persian sources. This is preposterous, akin to calling Mahatma Gandhi a
half naked fakir just because Winston Churchill called him so.
Chandra ignored sources like Jadunath
Sarkar, undoubtedly India's greatest ever historian, who quoted primary
- not secondary sources like Chandra - that Guru Tegh Bahadur encouraged
resistance to Aurungzeb's policy of forced conversion of Hindus to Islam,
got arrested and tortured because of this and was eventually beheaded.
Such facts find corroboration in the works of Cunningham, Archer, McAuliffe,
and Khushwant Singh etc.
There is no finality about History,
just interpretation. This government is committed to transparency and that
is why the deletions were done under the full glare of those hurt about
it. Not a single line has been added to textbooks, just a few lines that
were repulsive to the sentiments of some communities, especially the Jats,
Sikhs, and Buddhists have been deleted. It is objectionable that such objectionable
views were tolerated for so long. To use terms like Talibanisation so loosely
is not doing justice to honesty, truth and integrity. Let there be balance
and fair play, let perspectives be clear or else posterity will not forgive
us.
