Background:
During the budget
session of Parliament in Feb 2016, HRD minister Smriti Irani raised objection
over contents of a few history textbooks used by students from ICSE and CBSE
schools. Celebration of terrorist’s death anniversary, anti-national
sloganeering in the JNU campus was one of the reasons to bring out all this.
The students and teachers gathered in the JNU campus for that celebration believed
that India has illegally occupied Kashmir and every action to free it from
India is considered as an act of freedom struggle including the attack on
Indian Parliament, the temple of Indian democracy. So, they consider Afzal Guru,
the terrorist involved in the attack on Indian Parliament as a Martyr just like
Bhagat Singh and his hanging by Indian Judiciary system as judicial killing. The
roots of such anti-national thoughts being grown among college and university
students can be found in the contents of the history books taught to them at
school level. It plays a major role in forming their opinions about our country
and the historical figures. Once can learn a lot from history to handle future.
To know the ancient as well as modern history of the country, to know the
culture, to know about the historical places and monuments and to know the life
stories of historical figures in the country and to inculcate patriotism among
students are some of the basic objectives of teaching/learning history at
school level. During early school days it is important for students to know
history of the region they are living in i.e. the history of the state and the
country. Then in higher classes one can learn history of the world to be more
global along with modern history of the country and this must be a standard
practice in general history syllabus. Just out of curiosity I decided to look
into the history syllabus of ICSE board and ponder on the history content
taught to students at school level.
Credibility
of the ICSE Board:
To analyze syllabus of
ICSE initially I got textbooks of Class V, VII, VIII and IX from a student who
studies in a school following ICSE syllabus. Soon I realized that there is no
one publication followed for the syllabus. So, I referred to the ICSE website
to find out more about the syllabus. ICSE is an autonomous organization and it
seems is not answerable to department of school education which comes under HRD
ministry. To my surprise I did not find anything under the syllabus tab. Even I
did not find names of committee members who would be involved in the setting up
the syllabus. I tried to search about publishing of textbooks that followed
ICSE syllabus but could not find anything either. Again I went back to the
textbooks I had and read the preface to find that ICSE follows the syllabus of
the Inter-state Board for Anglo-Indian Education, ISBAIE, which is also an autonomous organization founded in 1935. It
seems it was set up for providing same curriculum in Europe, Eurasia, and
Anglo-India in which British were ruling and for providing education to
children of the British employees working in that region and or may be
providing foundational education to create civil servants for British
government. There is no list of committee members given in the website of
ISBAIE who is responsible for setting up the syllabus. Hence, it is still unclear
who is responsible for the ICSE syllabus followed by hundreds of schools all
over India and who is answerable for the complaints rose regarding the content
of the textbooks.
There are
many philanthropic objectives of ICSE that include education for poor, down
trodden children, children for widows and orphans etc. However, if we see the
reality is different. The schools which follow ICSE syllabus don’t take
government aid and so the school fees and the fees of educational material
including extracurricular activities are very high. People from moderate
background would not afford these schools and mostly students from elite class,
wealthy families, and upper middle class are found to be going in these
schools. The fees structure given in the ICSE website is only for 10th
and 12th exam fees. When I enquired about ICSE textbooks’ annual
sell to a well known book seller in ABC, Pune, he told me that yearly 2000 to
3000 sets of ICSE textbooks gets sold from their shop. Parents who buy ICSE and
CBSE textbooks would know how expensive these books are! The number of ICSE
textbooks’ sets getting sold is increasing every year, he added. He mentioned
that they get orders from schools not only from Pune but also from the region.
It is very clear that somehow the popularity of the ICSE syllabus is increasing
in the vicinity. I guess same condition can be seen all over India as I have
seen so many school-vans and school advertisements in Bangalore who follow ICSE
syllabus. Why all these details are important? Because thousands of Indian
students are spending 10-12 formative years of their lives studying syllabus of
an educational board which is not answerable to HRD ministry and whose business
does not seem to be transparent. If parents want to raise their voices against
the faulty content in the textbooks, there is nobody to whom they can complain
about it. Even if they complain, at least from what I observed it will not be
of any use because there is no committee who can take responsibility of the
textbooks published. So it will be easier for them to get away with the faulty content.
Methodology Followed and Motivation for the Analysis:
I am not a
historian by training but have background of educational research and
scholarship to undertake such a task. To get an idea what is there inside the
text it is enough to know the topics listed in the content. So, I followed the
index and wherever needed I read the textual details inside. In order to
analyze the ICSE syllabus I decided to read total 12 textbooks from 6 different
publishers for the grades III to X. I also used my broader knowledge and
awareness about the history and analyzed the content keeping in mind the basic
objectives of teaching history. It is always important to know whether the
objectives are getting fulfilled by the text prescribed for the study. This
activity is undertaken with self motivation and not funded by anybody. It is
not politically motivated but based on sheer concern about what students are
being taught as history. Another motivation is to bring this matter to the
attention of parents, teachers, students and the department of school education
under the HRD ministry so that some action could be taken to correct it.
Point One - Credibility of Authors and Publishers:
For
checking authenticity of the content written in the textbooks it is important
to know credentials of the authors and selection criteria for authors by
publishers to write these textbooks. For instance, in her speech in the
Parliamentary session Smriti Irani mentioned name of the author of a class IV
history textbook of ICSE board as Tista Setalwad. The book contains information
about Kashmir being illegally occupied by India, riots of Hindu-Muslims in
various parts of India, riots between Hindus and Christians in Kerala. The
content itself is inappropriate for class IV and providing wrong information
about Kashmir. Also, Tista Setlwad’s credentials are questionable as she is out
on bail for making fraud in the money she received in the name of aid for
Gujarat riot victims and the money has never reached to the victims. Why
students are being forced to learn from a textbook written by a fraud and
criminal background person?
Regarding
the number of publishing companies, I enquired with the book seller in Pune and
he told me that there are 6 to 7 publishers whose ICSE syllabus textbooks they
sell. It might be that shop’s record and there can be many more publishers
whose textbooks are sold all over India. Some publishers provide names and
credentials of the authors in the textbooks. Some give just names and no
authentic credentials and some do not provide names of authors at all forget
about credentials. The criteria for selecting the authors for the textbooks
remain unclear as there are authors who do not have right credentials to write
a textbook. For instance, for class VII history textbook one author has
qualification as MA in history and Post graduation in Journalism and Mass
communication. If we observe the standard practice by NCERT and SCERTs, there
are committees for creating syllabus and writing textbooks whose credentials
are minimum PhD in that subject and relevant teaching experience. How come a
journalist can write a history textbook of class VII? Most of the authors have
MA (history), BEd with work experience as Principal or Vice-Principal of some
ICSE school in the past. For writing textbooks in lower grades like class 3 to
5 this qualification is fine. But for higher grades from 6th to 10th
the author need to have research background along with the relevant teaching
experience. Why I am giving emphasis on author being a PhD and having research
background and relevant teaching experience? It is because that person can be
at least expected to check the correctness of the history (based on the latest
research in history and archeology) being written or taught in the textbooks
for years and years. Also, the person with relevant teaching background will be
aware of the ground realities in the school scenario and the pedagogical
theories. The scenario on this front (i.e. providing accurate account of
history) is not very satisfactory.
Point Two - Credibility of the Content:
All the
history textbooks refer to Indus Valley civilization as the beginning of
ancient Indian history and Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) as a base. They tell
that Vedic culture came with Aryans who invaded India and fought with
indigenous Dravidian people. It has been more than two decades that AIT has
been refused by historians (both Indian and western) based on Archeological
evidences found. It also accepts that Vedic civilization as the oldest
civilization on earth even thousands of years before other civilizations in the
world and Vedas as oldest texts with Sanskrit as the oldest language. Please refer
to the research papers written by Indian (link) and foreign scholars (link1), (link2) regarding refusing AIT. Why any of these writers/authors did not
bother to include the revised history in the textbooks? Instead they continued
with the false history. Is it because they were unaware or incompetent to know
this or it was deliberate attempt to teach false history?
The school
or teachers of that school to be precise decide which textbook they prefer for
their students to study and hence there is no commonality of the text among
schools in the same region. The advantage of setting up one committee for
forming curriculum and writing textbooks is that the contents remain connected
to each other and the unnecessary repetition gets avoided. With no such
structure for writing textbooks and being delegated it to various publishers
the major flaw happens to be disconnected content. Either the content gets
repeated in various standards or some content gets completely removed or
avoided. So, with this multiple publishing company system even students in the
same region study different content of the history in the same grade.
Point Three – Irrelevant Content:
The
textbook for class III published by Frank Educational Aids contains world
ancient history. It begins with Indus valley civilization and goes on to
include world civilizations like Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, and
Chinese. It also includes the world emperors such as Julius and Augustus Caesar,
Alexander, Gautam Budhha and Budhhism, and King Ashoka. Why there is a need to
teach history of the world civilizations and world emperors to class III
students? These little ones need to know the history of the region they are
living in. For instance, ICSE schools in Maharashtra should have the history of
Maharashtra (including the culture, life of historical figures, monuments,
forts, historical places etc.) to which they can actually visit and take motivation
from it. The history they study would
become more relevant, informative to them and the extracurricular activities
can be woven around the history.
The
textbook of class V published by Madhuban publication has taken running review
of Indian history beginning from Indus valley civilization and ending at India
getting freedom. If the same content would be taught in higher classes then why
do we need to repeat the same in lower classes with wrong, scanty information?
Moreover, the book seems to be emphasizing more on exam oriented content (i.e.
preparing students for objective questions like fill in the blanks, math the
following and answer in one word) instead of creating interest in the history.
The class V textbook published by Frank Educational Aids, have some different
content but that raises new set of questions. For instance, the first part of
the textbook begins with Great Leaders of the World that includes George
Washington, Nepoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Vladimir Lenin, Mao-Tse-tung,
Nelson Mandela, M K Gandhi. I fail to understand why the life of world leaders
is relevant to a class V child than to know about great Indian leaders and
historical figures?
Point Four – Distortion of Glorious Indian History:
In all the history
books the common scenario is that Indian history is projected maximum as
history of slavery, cowards and defeat. Class V history book published by
Madhuban Publishing begins with the wrong ancient history of India i.e. Before
Indus valley civilization; there was no real civilization as such in India.
People were living in caves and there was no writing. People use to hunt and
draw pictures on the wall. After Aryans invaded they developed Vedic
civilization etc. The information about Indian culture, scriptures is also
given in a scanty manner. The class VI history textbook published by Madhuban
Publications also repeats the wrong history of ancient India i.e. Stone Age,
Iron Age and all river valley civilizations and it ends with a small chapter on
Cholas, Mauryas.
Some of the class VII
textbooks have avoided history of Hindu kingdoms like Rajaputas, Cholas,
Mauryas, Guptas, Vijayanagara and Marathas. Some of the books have given some
information but that is very disconnected. Then Mughal empire and British
empire, Indian freedom struggle by doing Satyagraha and then Indian
independence gained by Gandhi. The major headings of the chapters from class
VII, Beena publications textbooks regarding Indian history are as follows: The
Advent of Islam, The Turkish Invasion, Delhi Sultnate, The Khilji Dynasty,
Tughluq and Lodhi Dynasties, The Vijayanagar and the Bahamani Kingdoms, Advent
of Mughals, Akbar the Great, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and Shivaji. If
we go into the details of these headings one can see some positive information
about Vijayanagar Kingdom only. The information about Shivaji Maharaj is mostly
he was very ambitious and gathered his hill men to form his own army. He fought
with Aurangzeb with gorilla war. How he killed Afazal Khan and how he cut
Shahista Khan’s fingers and how he did compromise with Mirza Raje Jai Singh.
The class VIII history
textbook published by Frank Educational Aids have following chapter headings:
Decline of Mughals; Rise of Regional Powers; Anglo-French Rivalry in Carnatic; Bengal:
Foundations of the British Empire; Expansion of British Rule in Southern,
Central and Western India; Expansion of British Rule in Northern India; Impact
of British Policies on India; The Indian Renaissance; The Revolt of 1857; Rise
of Indian Nationalism; Struggle for Indian Freedom (1919-1947). If anybody who
does not have any idea about real Indian history cannot really develop any
informative positive opinion about Indian history after reading these textbooks.
Instead the person will develop an opinion that Indian history means Mughal
history and Mughals brought early development, culture to India. Meanwhile
small Hindu kings fought with Mughals but could not win. Then came British
people and gave modern developments and civilization, education to Indians.
Indian national congress raised the nationalism among Indians and after the
freedom struggle by means of quit India movement and satyagraha by Gandhi India
got freedom. In some other publishing textbooks similar scenario can be seen
with some minimal difference here and there. But most of the tone is similar
i.e. glorification of Mughal invaders and British colonialism. Why there is no
account given regarding the revolutionary Indian freedom struggle fought by
many Indians and laid their lives for the cause?
British people are
ashamed of their colonial history and they did not want questions raised in
their children’s minds and so they do not teach them colonial history of
British. They teach only the history that is convenient to them. There is an
African pro-verb, “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify
the hunter”. Can we learn anything from this? We are still teaching the history
of India which was written by British people as per their own convenience. Why
aren’t we writing our own history and teach it our students? How one can
develop patriotism by reading such a scanty, selective, distorted history of
India?
Point
Five – Disconnected Nature of the Content Presented:
When textbooks are
written at school level the content must be presented with some logic, so that
it can be taught effectively. In these history textbooks, as I have mentioned
above, different publications are prescribed and used by different schools for
different classes. Sometimes the content in one class and the previous class
gets overlapped. Some publications remove some parts of the content totally and
avoid that information. So, when the history is actually taught to students its
nature becomes disconnected. Repetitive nature of the content in consecutive
classes would make students dislike the subject. Removal of some content would
keep students away from the historical accounts.
For instance: As
discussed earlier there is no logical connection or coherence in the history
content of class III to class V. Moreover, it ranges from world history,
ancient Indian history, modern Indian history and world leaders, reformers,
social workers, world cultures, civilizations, arts etc. It is like more
content is being squeezed in with no focus on anything. Same thing can be
observed in class VI textbook by Beena Publications. It does talk about Mauryas, Cholas, Guptas
but do not tell about Ahom Kingdom in Assam, Kings in Kashmir, no historical
account of Maharana Pratap. Class IV textbook published by Frank Educational
Aids begins with information about founders of different religions. It includes
only Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad and Guru Govind Singh. Why the founders of
other religions such as Judaism, Zorastrian, Jainism, Buddhism are not
included? Hinduism does not have any founder but then what problem is there to
provide the same information about Hinduism? Nowadays, there is no religious
training in Hindu families. If their children go in these schools and do not
get proper information about Hinduism then what kind of opinion they would
develop about Hinduism? Naturally they would become atheist and haters of
Hinduism. I have seen many such people among educated crowd. How come invader
and attacker Babar becomes powerful great king of India? Instead of telling the
students information about art during the renaissance period what is the
problem in telling them about art of Raja Ravi Varma and sculptures created in
Ajantha, Elora caves?
The information about
Mughals looted and converted local Indians who were following Hinduism and
Budhhism is absent from these history textbooks. There is no information about
how great ancient Indian universities Naland and Taxila were destroyed by
Mughals. No account of how Muslim invaders and attackers have broken Hindu
temples and built their mosques on the demolished structures. Some may argue
that they do not want to develop discomfort among Muslim students while learning
this kind of history. Why they should feel uncomfortable for the reality? True
history can be taught without developing hatred among students. If they think
so much about Muslims and Christians why don’t they think about majority Hindus
when they highlight caste system and oppression of Dalits by Upper casts? The
same thing can be argued. Majority Brahmins or even upper cast do not really
follow cast systems, then why to project it? Oh yes, it was a true history and
still in India in some parts such things do happen. Agreed, but then innocent tribal
people, poor and even educated Hindu people get converted to Christianity and
Islam is the reality of today’s India. Many terrorist activities in the name of
Islam are continued all over the world. Then why selective, distorted and
disconnected history, history that is convenient for some groups gets included
in the syllabus? No doubt, students develop no interest in history and form
wrong opinion about the country’s history. With such history how patriotism can
be developed among students?
Point
Six – Imbalance in the content:
There is imbalance in
the account of world history and Indian history provided in these textbooks. As
discussed earlier these books are full of disconnected, distorted and scanty
Indian history and are filled with more detailed account of world history such
as European, American and French history along with art, culture, religions. Another
imbalance is with content of history and civics. In a syllabus some marks are
allotted to history content and some for civics. Class IX textbook published by
Morning Star publications include account of WWI, WWII and formation of UN.
However, class IX and X textbooks published by Ratna Sagar publications do
revision of the same history given in previous classes and do not have world
wars at all. These books focus more on Civics than on history. How come
textbooks with such imbalance in the content can be accepted and prescribed as
textbooks?
Conclusion:
At this point my mind
is full of questions: If parents are ready to pay more fees for their
children’s education, why don’t they pay attention to what exactly is taught to
their children? How it is affecting the mentality of these children? If parents
of the students are aware of these conditions then what action they are taking
against it? Or they do not bother about history because it is not going to help
in becoming an engineer or a professional drawing fat salary working in MNC or
a Chartered Accountant providing financial advices or a medical doctor giving
health ailments? It would be interesting to find out what the students are
engaged in who have passed out of ICSE board schools? How many of them have
become academicians? How many of them have become powerful journalists? How
many of them have joined Indian civil services? What do teachers who teach this
history content think about it? In which board they themselves have studied?
Are there any means for parents, students and teachers to speak out about this?
Why NCERT do not undertake small research projects of analysis of textbooks of
various boards after every few years or so?
This is not as simple
as people take it to be. These have long
term effects on students and hence our country, as students is future of India.
Now India is the youngest country in the world. If the young minds are corrupted
then how will India not get affected? Recently I came across an article regarding
problems in history textbooks of the syllabus of California State in the US.
The parents, students and people from some local Hindu organizations raised
their voices in a systematic manner. Please refer to this URL to read
the article.According to them
Hinduism was depicted wrongly and the information about India was insufficient
and wrong. Parents, students from the Hindu community spoke out about all this
in front of a committee from California Educational Board in a meeting and put
forward the suggestions in a democratic way. One can see videos of the same in
the link. It is remarkable that how these parents are aware about what is taught to
their kids and all were concerned about the taught content and its impact on
the students and not about the marks. We do not have such kind of system to raise
the voices. Parents, students and teachers are the major stake holders in this
case. Can we develop some kind of formal or informal system or a powerful group
of parents who can collaborate with academicians, historians on their level and
raise the voices to department of school education of the HRD ministry? What
steps can be taken to make the workings of ICSE more transparent?
------By Dr
Aparna Lalingkar, Pune
