UGC-NCERT’s Right-Wing Drive: Educational System and Structure to Suit the Political Ideology of The Ruling Party
By
Ram Puniyani, New Age Islam
12 December
2023
As the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party inches closer to completing two terms in office,
its impact on institutions is more than evident. While the Enforcement
Directorate, income tax authorities and the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) have played their role in cornering the opposition parties, the Election
Commission has sometimes been partisan. Now, it is evident that the University
Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Council for Educational Research and
Training (NCERT) are also not far behind in trying to change the educational
system and structure to suit the political ideology of the ruling party.
New
instructions are regularly sent to educational institutes to introduce Hindu
nationalist sentiments and ethos among students. When the present government
was trying to intimidate and undermine student movements, it labelled their
protests as anti-national. Former minister of Human Resource Development,
Smriti Irani, proposed installing a tall pole in each university to hoist the
national flag. Another idea was floated to place a decommissioned military tank
on the Jawaharlal Nehru University premises, where students were publicly
debating issues, a concept that goes against the grain of the government’s
thinking.
More
circulars have been issued in recent days. One says students must participate
in year-long celebrations of the birth centenary of Dattaji Didolkar, a
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak who set up the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP). This cult-building exercise for a Hindu nationalist is mainly
meant for colleges in Maharashtra. Is the UGC right in promoting the
celebration of figures from the Hindu nationalist stable? Indeed, the UGC must
promote those who stood for Indian nationalism or fought British colonial rule.
But Didolkar was never part of either strand of the freedom struggle, nor does
he represent the values enshrined in the Constitution of independent India.
Yet another
circular demands the setting up of ‘selfie points’ with Prime Minister Narendra
Modi in the backdrop. Such a step is being taken with the 2024 Lok Sabha
election in mind and has no place in a democratic country. It amounts to
propaganda for one party and its supreme leader. It violates the ethos of
democracy, blatantly violates democratic and constitutional values, and is a
gross abuse of power.
That is not
all. One recent instruction says that students from standards seven to 12
should be taught the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as part of the history
curriculum and placed in the ‘classical period’. Per the NCERT expert panel,
learning the Ramayana and Mahabharata will instil self-esteem, patriotism and
pride.
India’s two
great epics are a part of our mythology and can impart tremendous knowledge
about society and norms of the times they were written in. These great epics
provide valuable insights into periods of history mired in vague understanding
or incomplete knowledge.
The
Ramayana is popular beyond India, in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali, Sumatra, and
elsewhere. Interestingly, it has many versions. Originally written by Valmiki,
it was further popularised by Goswami Tulsidas’s Avadhi epic Ramayana. It
became part of popular culture in northern India from the 16th century onwards.
The many versions of the Ramayana result from its diverse origins and
geographic spread. But the Hindu nationalists promote just one version of the
great epic. Paula Richman’s Many Ramayans: The Diversity of a Narrative
Tradition in South Asia, first published by OUP in 1991, explores the diverse
versions of Lord Rama’s story. The noted scholar AK Ramanujan’s remarkable
essay, ‘300 Ramayans: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’, was included
in the teaching at The University of Delhi until 2011, when Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad activists protested, and the university buckled under
pressure.
Hindu
nationalists want to project just one particular version of Lord Rama’s story
as authentic when Ramanujan tells us about its diverse tellings: the Jain,
Buddhist, and women’s versions (the last by Ranganayakamma). Even the ‘Adivasi
Ramayana’ has a different storyline than all others, a fact mainstream media
and the government wish to paper over.
BR Ambedkar
drew our attention in his book, ‘Riddles in Hinduism’, to the killing of
Shambuka during his penance by Rama, as the Shudras being denied scriptural
equality. Rama also killed Bali, a revered ruler among some marginalised
communities. The chant, ‘Eida Pida Javo: Baliche Rajya Yevo--Let our pains go,
Let Bali return as king’. Ambedkar is critical of Rama banishing Sita into the
forest on suspicion of infidelity. Periyar is also critical of Lord Rama for
imposing North Indian Aryanism on the Dravidas.
Similarly,
Maharishi Ved Vyas’s Mahabharata, the longest poem ever composed, provides
valuable glimpses into our past. All our epics are essential sources of
historical knowledge, but to import them into the history syllabus does justice
neither to history nor epics nor our understanding of mythology. It is linked
more to the Hindu nationalist agenda than unravelling the truth about the past.
Among other
moves of the panel is one that instructs that the name India be replaced with
Bharat on the ground that India denotes slavery, as it has British origins.
What is being deliberately suppressed is the pre-existence of variations of the
word India from times long before the British arrival. As early as BCE 303, the
Greek traveller and diplomat Megasthenes used the word Indica. Derivatives
signifying India that arrive from the river Sindhu have been in vogue from
early times. That is why “Bharat that is India” in the Constitution is the
perfect formulation for us all. But Hindu nationalism is uncomfortable with the
diversity, inclusivity and openness that India/Bharat represents. They desire
to re-periodise Indian history. The British called the early period of Indian
history the ‘Hindu period’, while the Hindu nationals now want it to be called
the ‘Classical Period’. The idea is to present the values of that period as the
baseline for today’s society. Many of those values can be found in the Manusmriti,
and the ones being promoted are precisely those which made Ambedkar rebel
against this book.
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Ram
Puniyani is a human rights activist. The views are personal.
URL: https://newageislam.com/current-affairs/ugc-ncert-right-wing-political-ideology/d/131297
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