It is far easier to cut out sections from a textbook than to write one. Yet, the deletions made by NCERT in social science textbooks – revealed by a indian express inquiry – Needs to be taken seriously as an act of rewriting. This amendment touches upon important points regarding the state-citizen relationship, the government’s vision of democracy and the vision of an ideal Indian society.
After eight years in power, BJP has not been able to develop a solid statement that would form the basis of new school textbooks according to its ideological orientations. But it entertains disdain for academic endeavor and shows cynical courage in “editing” school textbooks. As reported by this newspaper, social science textbooks have undergone three rounds of editing since 2017. Whatever the official reasons for this, the fact remains that these deletions speak of a certain kind of approach to textbooks, pedagogy and politics.
Of course, some of the deletions are purely ad hoc on the face of it and are related to political facts inconsistent with the current regime. The violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 falls in this category. But then, surprisingly, even the discussion of Emergency has been taken out of the books. In purely tactical terms, this may be a calculated deletion to keep Congress quiet with an undeclared: We remove what we don’t want but we also remove what you don’t want. It will be interesting to see how the Congress reacts to this and whether after more than four decades, it has the courage to rectify the issue and admit its mistake. In any case, deletion prefers not to mention only about the government and the ruling party. They are more about devising social science textbooks and, in fact, the idea of social science itself.
In this sense, the deletions indicate a deep skepticism of the social sciences among those in power and their attempt to reimagine these subjects, not just replace their textbooks. How to conceive of social science and how to introduce contemporary social and political processes to social science students is a challenging question. Social scientists are the facilitators of critical thinking among students and readers. Rulers uncomfortable with critical thinking want to reorganize the social sciences. The present era of extinction needs to be understood from this point of view. The idea seems to be that by not mentioning some inconvenient facts, governance can not only run away from reality, but also ensure that students do not develop critical faculties to look at society and politics. This could be the bigger motive behind removing the clauses on Gujarat violence and Emergency. The same logic applies to two other major deletions: the mention of caste injustice as part of India’s social reality and the discussion of protest movements as an important part of India’s democracy.
Together, these deletions show that by undoing what was already in the textbooks, the government is trying to rewrite the ideas of society and politics and re-envision the purpose of social science. Often neglected in schools, the subjects of social science often become the arenas of deep ideological battles for two reasons. One, his subject. The second, as noted above, pertains to their ability to develop a questionable approach. Both have a strong subversive potential that only a healthy democracy can tolerate. Governments that harbor undemocratic tendencies are not comfortable with social science textbooks. To overcome this complexity and to harmonize with the formal need to include social sciences in the school curriculum, three strategies are adopted.
The first strategy is to insist on heavy government control and avoidance of curriculum and textbooks. Bouts of extinction represent this strategy. All the governments in India have taken recourse to it. By removing sentences and chapters, the government wants to avoid introducing students to certain procedures. If in political science it is related to Gujarat violence, in history textbooks it is related to Mughal rulers. This delay is visible in removing the ongoing discussion on the Gujarat violence. Both the Emergency and the Gujarat violence symbolize the failure of many institutions. Aren’t these important moments that students studying Indian politics should be introduced to? The answer to the present regime seems to be negative.
Basically, the removal of sections relating to the Gujarat violence recognizes that there is something about that 2002 episode that needs to be hidden from the public domain.
The second strategy is to clean the textbooks and present an ideal picture of society and politics. This is being done on the question of caste.
Rather than allowing students to understand caste as a system of injustice, Annihilation seeks to present an idealized and imagined Indian/Hindu society in which caste is only a minor or minor perversion. To achieve this, textbooks are made to adopt a formal approach in which mechanical mention is made of institutional designs. While this would make the subject interesting, it would also mean that the students would not be exposed to the actual working of the institutions.
The third strategy is perhaps the most important: it involves a reinterpretation of the moral underpinnings of socio-political processes. The removal of chapters of Emergency and protest movements should be seen in this context. Congress needs to be shamed for imposing Emergency in BJP’s short term politics. But its long-term politics rests on two ideas. One is the idea of a strong state which seeks to subdue the energy of the citizens and the other is the idea of formal and minimal democracy in the form of real democracy. The Emergency represents the rulers’ determination to subdue the citizens and that is exactly what the present regime has been doing for the past eight years. Therefore, skipping the chapter on emergency is not just a short-term political move, but a decision informed from the broader perspective that citizens need to be heavily regulated as the nation-state represents all wisdom. The deletion of the section fits well with the goal of recreating the relationship between the authority and the citizens.
Similarly, in the case of the chapter on protest movements, the aim is to reform the idea of democracy. The textbook is based on the idea that in theory protests represent civic initiative and, in practice, they undermine government authority. In place of this understanding, the government seeks to propagate the idea of minimal and formal democracy which is largely based on the regular conduct of elections. The protest is not seen as an event enriching democracy but as a challenge.
Democracy involves not only competition, but also conflict and popular protest. Democracy in this sense is a messy affair. But beneath that grudge lies an innate ability to challenge all forces. That’s exactly what “rational” textbooks desperately try to avoid.
The author, based in Pune, taught Political Science and was one of the two main advisors to NCERT Political Science textbooks