Myth cannot become truth

AMONG THE VARIOUS attempts by the BJP-led NDA Government to force on the country the Hindutva agenda, the most disturbing effort is taking place in the field of education. And the Union Human Resources Development Ministry has been ceaselessly engaged in this in so brazen and provocative a manner that the Minister holding that portfolio, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, did not even care to allay the fears expressed by a cross-section of the Opposition (and also some of the ruling combine's allies) in the Lok Sabha. The changes that are being contemplated in the National Curriculum Framework for School Education are not just cosmetic but threaten to unravel the scientific basis and methodological rigour that have underlain the presentation of ideas in the existing curricula. Instead, they seek to introduce in the schoolbooks a set of ideas that will redefine the idea of Indian nationalism in a way that will be inimical to the pluralist and democratic ideas that form the basis of our nationalist thought process. And it is this danger that had brought about the unity in the Opposition benches when members in the Lok Sabha debated the issue. And if there was any doubt about what exactly the BJP's objective was in attempting such changes, they were ``clarified'' by Mr. V. K. Malhotra outside the House when he defended the measures now under way.

Mr. Malhotra's insistence that the Aryans were the original inhabitants of the Gangetic valley is just one basis of this attempt to redefine Indian nationalism. The Sangh Parivar and a set of academicians associated with them have refused, all along, to accept that the Aryans too had come from far away lands to settle down in the Gangetic valley. Such evidence that the Aryans did not constitute a race (that they belong to a group of people who spoke the Indo-Aryan group of languages) and the facts gathered by archaeologists about the existence of the horse and the use of iron (that render the Aryan or the Vedic civilisation distinct from the pre-existing Indus civilisation) being absent from the sites in the Indus valley do not matter to them. There is also evidence that the Indus valley civilisation pre-dates the Aryan civilisation, but that does not seem to matter to those in the Sangh Parivar. The reason for this - refusing to accept historical facts as they are even when backed by substantive evidence - and for insisting that myths be treated as history is not difficult to understand. To insist that the Aryans were the original inhabitants of India (despite evidence to the contrary) is integral to the Sangh Parivar's definition of Indian nationalism that seeks to treat all others (the minority communities in particular) as outsiders; this was the view espoused by M.S.Golwalkar who is revered as the `guru' by all those in the BJP to this day.

The intense desire to change the curriculum (particularly in schools) emanates from the Sangh Parivar's agenda to reduce the concept of Indian nationalism to one based on the notion of a ``cultural'' identity rather than accept that the making of the Indian nation was an integral part of the freedom struggle. And in this sense, there is a denial of the pluralist and democratic spirit that is integral to the essence of the national movement and to Indian nationalism as such. It is for this reason that one finds the fears expressed by a large section of the academia and those in the Opposition parties justified. For, to include such categorical statements that the Aryans did not come from outside, despite evidence to the contrary, and that also in school textbooks will only lead to the bringing up of a whole new generation with a mindset that will not only reject the pluralist and democratic traditions of the freedom movement but also carry in their minds such erroneous myths that the era of the Vedic civilisation represented a golden age. To let a generation grow up with such factually untrue distortions will only accentuate discrimination based on caste and religion in the name of socio- cultural values. This is dangerous and inimical to the very spirit of the mighty struggle against the British imperial rulers and the democratic and pluralist foundations on which the struggle was waged.

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