Notion of Nation | Subtext of
Doctored Textbooks
ANURADHA M CHENOY
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2003 12:00:20 AM ]
Recent debates across three countries, India, the US and Pakistan,
on the question of textbooks reveal how ruling regimes attempt to construct
nationhood in young minds. These debates show how education is an
instrument of ruling paradigms and ascertains how power is structured.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), chaired by the vice-
president's wife, Lynne Cheney, published a report insisting that the American
universities teach courses on western and American civilisation and America's
'continuing struggle to extend and defend the principles on which it was
founded'. This report was critical of several univer-sities for 'unpatriotic
incidents'.
These universities were focusing on other cultures and
critiques of American policies that did not coincide with
the current US government's interests.
A study by academics from the Sustainable Development Institute of Pakistan
revealed that social studies texts for the junior grades in Pakis-tan's public
schools instruct students in the concept of jehad. The curriculum stresses
male superiority and women are subtly shown in traditional roles.
The seminaries in Pakis-tan are known to have contributed large numbers of
young boys to the Taliban and jehadi outfits. In India, texts by internationally
acknowledged historians were first censored and then removed by the
government because they discussed issues that did not conform to the
construction of a dominant Hindu nation. Instead, new school textbooks that
reconstruct history to suit Hindutva ideology have been introduced.
All three instances show how education is a site where a particular kind of
national chauvinism can be constructed and how ruling regimes intervene in
education to promote ideologies that glorify a dominant community while
marginalising other groups, especially minorities.
In such circumstances secular and multicultural history is seen
as subversive and governments try and impose a cultural uniformity
through education. Textbooks are the obvious
examples of how history is manipulated especially if it is conceived by ruling
regimes and authored by people with the interests in constructing a nation
based on a homogeneous nationality.
In texts where history is simplified by glorifying conquest or constructing
humiliation, there is little interest in people's history. If concepts of heritage,
history and literature minimise the reality of the marginalised and construct the
past in a way to suit the present, they lead to a mindset where power is
equated primarily with force and dominance in the young mind. The tendency
then is to use this aspect of power to negotiate relations and strategise life.
This paradigm is reinforced in popular media that leave imprints on the learning
mind.
The consequence of such education is evident. It brings biases and conflicts
into the classrooms and then communities view others in opposition to
themselves and are bent upon taking revenge for the past as a consequence of
incomplete knowledge. Quality education gets restricted to elite schools and
universities that have the option to choose different systems and texts.
Schools run for the purpose of inculcating the values of any one religion
whether they are the shiksha mandirs or Taliban style madrassas generate
life-long biases.
Governments make appointments to bodies that oversee curricula and it is
very difficult to ensure political non- intervention. But politicians need to allow
these institutions to function within an academic realm. Clearly, academics
known in these subjects should determine curricula without being subject to
political intervention. The curricula should be subject to peer and user review
and periodically upgraded. While governments are interested in influencing
texts, they are not equally interested in increasing finances for improving the
overall quality of education and are withdrawing from responsi- bilities towards
upgrading teachers' skills, introducing new technology to government-aided
schools or add-ing creativity and sports to curricula.
If ruling regimes are genuinely interested in education they need to facilitate
schools and universities by prioritising funding for them as they do for defence
and security. In all the cases cited above, the budget for education is far below
other items, especially military expenditure, and less than the needs of
society. School teachers are poorly paid and their value downgraded.
There is far too large a gap between the private and public school systems.
The education system does not work in isolation of society, nor does it
change society on its own. But, it can become a partner for transformation.
Education and educators play a dialogic role in the process of contesting
sectarian ideas especially if they link up with wider social movements and
discourses. For expanding and improving the quality of education, each
segment of society has to play its separate role without enforcing a specific
political agenda. Governments should restrict themselves to funding.
Clearly, ruling regimes should be looking at the infrastructure needs of the
education system, widening its scope and bringing more children and youth
into primary, secondary and higher education. No nation can follow just one
textbook even if a regime dictates it should. After all political regimes and their
ideas are subject to change.
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