A state in India’s Northeast, a rather romanticized region for the country’s liberals has now become an eyesore for the same people. Manipur and its board of higher secondary education is now under fire for daring to ask students a question on the negative traits of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru in matters of nation-building.
A question in the Political Science paper of the Council of Higher Secondary Education (Class XII) had two questions this year which have caught the eye of liberals and Nehru-fantasizers.
https://twitter.com/AngellicAribam/status/1231459052380663808?s=19
https://twitter.com/AngellicAribam/status/1231461479880314885?s=19
The same question paper also asked students to draw the ‘election symbol’ of the Bhartiya Janata Party, which is indeed an absurd ‘question’, if it can be called so. Students of Political Science in 12th standard certainly don’t need to be tested on flimsy questions such as them knowing the party symbol of the BJP. To the Council’s defence, such questions are not a first. Previously too, students have been asked to draw the symbols of the CPI(M) and the United Nations, with the only difference being that nobody cried foul over the questions back then. That being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the same question paper asking students to elucidate on the negative aspects of Nehru’s Prime Ministership. Contrary to what was claimed by Angellica, an ‘activist’, Manipuri students are nowhere close to indoctrination, merely because they were asked to answer a question. “This is the question paper of the ongoing council of higher secondary education examination 2020(COHSEM). You can get in touch with anyone who appeared for the said exam,” Akee Sorokhaibam, the individual who first reported on the matter, told The Indian Express. “And, yes my sister appeared it and she sent me the question paper,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Congress is fuming in Manipur. Congress leader Kh Joykishan had said on Sunday that the paper was an attempt to “instil certain kind of a political mindset” among students. The BJP has said that it has nothing to do with the selection of questions in a board examination. Not that they had to defend themselves, but whoever is of the opinion that political parties can dictate what questions need to be set in a board examination are in dire need of a medical examination themselves.
Liberals and wannabe Nehru fans are outraging over a false cause. The question on our first Prime Minister is very much legitimate and is certainly not wrong to be asked. Neither is Nehru a holy cow, neither is he a taboo. The class XII syllabus (which was set before the BJP was anywhere close to ruling Manipur) of Political Science has an entire section dedicated to nation-building, and Nehru occupies a major chunk of that portion. Now, no sane board of education would go on to only extoll the brilliance of previous leaders. There are always two sides to political topics which are usually taught to students. In fact, Nehru’s Foreign Policy also finds mention in the same syllabus. If at all, Nehru fans should be obliged to COHSEM for providing Nehru with so much book-space.
Open discussions on Nehru’s successes (which would barely be any) and failures is a sign of a healthy education system. For far too long, many have considered Jawaharlal Nehru to be an unquestionable figure in Indian politics. That cannot remain the case forever. Time would eventually demand an objective analysis of the man’s career, and what was asked in Manipur was just a pre-cursor to the maturation of Indian democracy, where people are not afraid to ask legitimate questions of previously-held demigods.