Author: S. Balakrishnan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 7, 2002
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government at the Centre is under attack in the academic world for allegedly
trying to saffronise education. The party has been accused of trying to
rewrite Indian history to fit into the RSS world view. In this context,
Times News Network spoke to Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, director-general of the
Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini and an important member of the RSS think tank.
Excerpts:
Q. The BJP and the RSS have been
accused by several intellectuals of trying to saffronise education. Please
comment.
A. This charge is completely baseless
and has been invented by the communists who have been ruling the roost
all these years in the academic world. For the past few decades, the Marxists
have been dominating public discourse m the country. All these years they
have been controlling important posts in academia without any accountability
whatsoever and are now fearing joblessness with the change in government.
With the BJP coming to power, leftist
academicians are feeling threatened. Hence they are creating a ruckus over
non-issues so that the heat is turned away from them.
Q. You are imputing motives to the
critics. But you have not replied to the allegation of saffronisation.
A. There is absolutely no effort
to give an ideological orientation to textbooks. Even A. K. Antnoy, who
is the Congress chief minister of Kerala, has objected to the use of the
world saffronisation. Following this, our critics are talking of talibanisation
of education which is a very derogatory expression.
All that the Union minister for
human resource development Murli Manohar Joshi is trying to do is the de-Maculisation
of our education system. Under the British regime, Lord Macaulay had laid
the basis for the education system and we are still continuing with it.
Lord Macaulay himself had candidly admitted that "we must do our best to
form a class who may be an interpreter between us and the millions whom
we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English
in taste and opinion and words and intellect."
R.V Parulekar in his Selections
from the Records of Bombay Education, has quoted Lord Macaulay as having
observed that "no Hindu who has received an English education ever remains
sincerely attached to his religion. It is my firm belief, if our plans
of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater amongst
the respectable classes in Bengal 30 years hence and this will be effected
without any effort to proselyte..." What Mr Joshi has been trying to do
is to nullify the fatal influence of Lord Macaulay on our education system.
Q. Don't you think that the formulation
of textbooks is best left to academies rather than the government?
A. Nobody disagrees with this.
Mr Joshi has clarified that this exercise is being carried out by a purely
academic body like the National Council for Education Research and Training
(NCERT). In fact, this exercise was started by Rajiv Gandhi in 1986 who
formulated the New Education Policy (NEP). Mr Joshi is only completing
the unfinished task. The Rajiv Gandhi government had appointed a committee
of experts to examine the curriculum and Mr Joshi is only implementing
the recommendations of this committee. Incidentally, not one member of
this committee has any leanings towards the RSS.
The panel's recommendations were
circulated by Mr Joshi to 67 political parties and all the state governments
to elicit their opinion. Not one of them, including the Marxists, responded.
Q. You are being accused of attacking
academic freedom. Please comment.
A. There is not even an iota of
truth in this charge. Whatever is detrimental to the unity of the country
is sought to be deleted from the books. For example, historian Romila Thapar
had written in the book on ancient India recommended for class VI that
"another power that arose in this period in the region around Delhi, Agra
and Mathura was that of the jats. They founded their state at Bharatpur
wherefrom they conducted plundering raids in the region around and participated
in the court intrigues at Delhi." In the 11th standard book Madhyakalin
Bharat, there are extremely adverse references to the great Sikh guru Teg
Bahadur. The Marxists have no right to accuse us of curbing academic freedom.
In West Bengal, the textbooks have deleted references to Sri Aurobindo
and pictures of Lenin are prominently displayed.
Q. Why is the RSS obsessed with
history?
A. There is no obsession. Persons
no less than Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekanada, Rabindranath Tagore etc
have called for a change in the teaching of history. Mahatma Gandhi said
"I find daily proof of the increasing and continuing wrong being done to
the millions by our false deindianising of education. These graduates who
are my valued associates flounder when they have to give expression to
their innermost thoughts. They are strangers in their own homes. What is
worse, even the swaraj for which we are struggling may become foreign in
character when we finally get it." His words were indeed prophetic.
