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Politicisation of education |
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The politicisation of education began after the partition of India. The target then was books on history with historians of Pakistan giving new twists to medieval history books. The present controversy is more ideological. It is the RSS vs. the Rest.
Observers note the outburst of the Education Ministers of BJP-ruled States at a meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) is only “Chapter Two” of a long-running struggle against partisan control over what should constitute “learning” for young minds. The roots of the malaise -politicisation of education-would seem to lie in the basic Nehruvian intolerance towards diversity of opinion on the concept of Indian nationhood.
It all started in October 1998, when the then Human Resources Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, called a meeting of State Education Ministers. A deep-seated aversion to perceived “saffron” pedagogy found expression in a politically motivated furore over the singing of the Saraswati Vandana (eulogizing Hinduism) at the inauguration. From that point on, confrontation was the name of the game, with unfortunate effects on the nation’s psyche.
The more the Leftists-the Congress’s ideological fellow travelers-hammered on the BJP’s educational programme, the more determined became the latter’s resolve to rectify the educational system’s obvious ills, as manifested over the preceding five decades. Now that the Congress is back in power, education is again the target.
The BJP Education Ministers are expected to crystallise their position over the next few months, but the broad contours of their agitation could be said to have pretty much developed already thanks to Arjun Singh’s absurd scheme of replacing NCERT (National Council of Education, Research and Training) history textbooks. Singh’s outburst on August 9 against the RSS has made matters worse, with speculation whether Arjun Singh was playing a bigger game and destabilising the Prime Minister himself. The result has been the rejuvenation of the saffronite’s self-esteem.
Meanwhile, close on the heels of the Congress leader, Arjun Singh, daring the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to go ahead and sue him for his remarks linking the RSS to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) too joined issue with the RSS. An editorial in the CPM (M)’s paper, People’s Democracy, said that the well-known writer A.G. Noorani had documented systematic evidence in his recent book on the Mahatma’s assassination. Also, Nathuram Godse’s (assassin of Gandhi) brother, Gopal Godse, recently had gone on record that Nathuram, along with all his brothers, including Gopal, was a member of the RSS. “Only after the assassination, at the request of the RSS, Nathuram denied his association. When told that L.K. Advani denies this, he called Advani a “coward’,” it said.
Reacting to the BJP’s counter-charge against the Left parties on the issue of “detoxification” of education, the editorial said the RSS/BJP was seeking to mask by hurling “libellous charges that the restoration of the content of Indian education was in line with the Indian Constitution was being done under the pressure of the Marxist.”
On the other hand, joining issues with HRD Minister Arjun Singh, BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu has described his attack on RSS as an act of “one-upmanship” aimed at projecting himself as a “champion of pseudo secularism”. “His (Singh’s) is an act of one-upmanship which he had done earlier during the prime ministership of both Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. He is trying to project himself as a champion of pseudo-secularism and garner the support of the Communists.”
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