The Aam Aadmi Party lashed out at the BJP on Monday accusing the Party of saffronization of education in the country. “The multicultural, multilingual identity of our country is being attacked by the Sangh Parivar as it tries to homogenize the society by meddling with education,” said AAP leader Atishi Marlena.
The accusations came after Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyasthe, headed by Dina Nath Batra, wrote to the NCERT recommending changes in the contents of textbooks. Ms. Marlena, an adviser to Education Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, further stated, “The RSS-BJP’s interventions and discourse on education start and end with religion. Their understanding of education reforms is limited to changing India’s history textbooks to suit their narrative.”
The recommendations suggested by the organization has attracted the ire of many liberals and allegations are flying high and low over BJP’s alleged attempt to destroy the composite culture of the nation by saffronizing textbooks at school.
The mature approach would have been to pinpoint the exact recommendations the liberals find fault with but as is their wont, they have resorted to name calling and slandering their opponent instead of engaging in rational debate about the proposition.
“Several things (in these books) are baseless, biased. There is an attempt to insult members of a community. There is also an appeasement… how can you inspire children by teaching them about riots? The history of valour, of great personalities like Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose find no place,” Atul Kothari, secretary of the Nyas and a veteran RSS Pracharak, told The Indian Express. Kothari went on to add that he hope the suggestions were implemented.
On the face of it, some of the suggestions certainly seem ill advised. However, most are quite valid and deserve much attention. For instance, in the Political Science textbook of class XII, a sentence says, “Babri mosque was built by Mir Baqi… Some Hindus believe that it was built at the birthplace of Ram by destroying a Ram temple.” The sentence is quite an obvious distortion of history. Former Regional Director (North) of Archaeological Survey of India, KK Muhammed, has confirmed that remains of a Temple had been discovered at the site of Babri Masjid during excavations made by a team of achaeologists in 1976-77, headed by BB Lal, then Director General of ASI, in which he was also a member.
The organization has further recommended the deletion of English and Urdu words used in Hindi textbooks. Any sensible person with an iota of brain would agree that Hindu textbooks should not use words of any other language, it is not Saffronization if one recommends that only Hindi words be used in Hindi textbooks.
The organization also recommended the deletion of Ghalib’s couplet, “Hum ko malum hai jannat ki haqiqat lekin/dil ko khush rakhne ko Ghalib ye khyal achchha hai”, another perfectly legitimate suggestion.
In History textbooks, a chapter on the Mughal era asserts that “the rulers had an extremely liberal policy towards people… All Mughal rulers gave grants for the construction and maintenance of places of worship. Even when the temples were destroyed during battles, grants for their repair work were released later.”
It is a lie of humongous proportions. Contemporary historical accounts record and even celebrate the genocide inflicted on Hindus by Islamic invaders, therefore to assert that the Mughals had an ‘extremely liberal policy towards people’ is a blatant distortion of history.
The organization has demanded that the sentence be deleted and one can only agree that a demand to delete propaganda disguised as facts from students’ textbooks is only righteous.
Consistent with their past behavior, instead of focusing on the specific recommendations of the organization, liberals have chosen character assassination and blatant slander over rational discourse and debate. Liberals have gotten so used to having their way with education and brainwashing of our children that the slightest bit of threat to the Leftist hegemony over students’ textbooks is met with harsh criticism and slander.
Admittedly, some of the recommendations indeed seem a bit off the hook. However, such differences are to be resolved through debate and discussion and not slandering the opposition. Insult is no match for an educated rebuttal and Liberals have cried wolf so many times over ‘Saffronization of Education’ that every time they wail, one cannot help but doubt their credibility.