Saffronisation of Education
Thanks to BJP, it has given rise to a new term in the English vocabulary ? Saffronisation! The term has been invented to denote the measures taken by the BJP-led central government to change the different school curricula in accordance with the Hindutva ideology of BJP. The Central Human Resource and Development Minister Sri Murali Monohar Joshi has been taking steps right from the beginning to implement this sinister project. This has taken a particular serious turn with the stopping of publication of a particular volume of the History of India's Freedom Struggle by the order of NCERT's newly appointed director and a circular of NCERT sent to different schools asking them not to teach a few pages of three history books prescribed for classes VI, VII, & XI. The particular volume of the History of India's freedom struggle, and the three history books have all been written by historians of international repute. These moves of BJP-government have raised quite a fierce controversy, especially among the academicians and the intelligentsia. These sections of the Indian population have raised quite a loud voice of protest against machination of BJP, which has filtered through various sections of the society.
The measures taken by the Human Resource and Development Ministry and the protests by various academicians and intellectuals have received considerable amount of publicity in the media and various students, and other organisations have already voiced their protests against these moves by HRD Ministry. The historians castigated by BJP Government have also voiced their protests in different forums. So we feel that there is no need now to harp on the main issue. On the other hand, we want to concentrate on some related issues.
Firstly, while welcoming the protests of the academicians and intellectuals against this sinister move of BJP and voicing our support to these protests, we want to emphasize that this issue should not remain a matter of concern only of the intelligentsia. This move of BJP is not just an attack on education or school curriculum. It is an integral part of a total plan of BJP and Sangh Parivar to gag truth, spread falsehood and bulldoze the Indian society into the moulds of Hindutva.
By declaring that the school textbooks should not contain any such things that "can injure the (religious) sentiments of any particular community" the BJP government has made it abundantly clear that their policy is to suppress truth and preach falsehood. At the same time it should be noticed that when they speak of injuring the religious sentiments of any particular community, they do not mean all religious communities of India. Because RSS activists have written and published some history books for school which contain extremely derogatory remarks about different Mughal and other Muslim emperors. These books have been recommended as textbooks by the ministry of Human Resource And Development. It seems that in the case of Mughal and other Muslim emperors and their rules, BJP is all "for the truth"?truth as they perceive! So when they put a ban on everything, which injures religious sentiments of "any particular community", the ban is applicable mainly in the case of Hindu religious sentiments.
This is an extremely dangerous move where the history is twisted to suit Hindutva ideology. BJP is pursuing this policy in every sphere where truths are shamelessly twisted to serve their ideology, their purpose. So this endeavour to saffronise education must be resisted by all real democratic and progressive sections of the Indian society and most vigorously by the Indian working class. This issue is not a matter of serious concern only of the intelligentsia but it is a matter of serious concern of the whole of Indian society, as it bars all progress, creates communal frenzy, divides the working class and other exploited people.
A very important point has come out in the present controversy on which we want to give special emphasis and our main purpose here is to draw attention to this particular point.
It is seen that a viewpoint is being methodically floated by the Indian bourgeois press and other media that as saffronisation of education is harmful and must be opposed so also Marxisation. According to this viewpoint, as the Hindutva ideologues are rewriting the school text books with the aim of indoctrinating the young ones with the Hindutva ideology, so also the Marxists, specially the Left Front of West Bengal have rewritten and are rewriting the school text books with the aim of indoctrinating the young ones with Marxist ideology. It has also been cunningly hinted in various ways that since the history textbook put on the anvil by the BJP-government are written by historians who are avowedly Marxists, their description of history is also an interpretation of history according to Marxism and as such is biased and hence distorted in another way.
So these learned fellows want to preach that humanity can get at the truth or truthful history, if it is written by human beings with 'no ideals, no philosophies ? who do not interpret', but state only facts. But how can we get this 'mythical human being with no ideals, no philosophies'? Because, never in the course of march of human civilization, in no form of society such human beings can be traced. Every human being, consciously or unconsciously, in most cases unconsciously, is a carrier of some fixed set of values, the summation of which is an ideal or philosophy, which may be 'bad' or 'good' (this valuation is dependent on the person who is valuing), and which the person cannot but continuously and spontaneously reflect through his/her existence. Are the critics under question are trying to oppose this truth or are they also voicing their support for a particular type of interpretation of history and thereby reflecting a particular sets of values, a particular viewpoint, a particular ideology? It is really strange that these critics who are all against any 'biased interpretation of history' and go only for truthful description of history, for 'bare facts', find the history textbook for school quite acceptable and unbiased when these textbook contain only the chronological description of different empires, arbitrary nomenclature of different historical periods, eulogies about Abraham Lincoln, Gandhiji etc, but completely omit Paris Commune, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Marx, Engels, Lenin or Mao Ze-Dong etc 'from the truthful, factual description of history'. Any mention of Paris Commune, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution or any endeavour to include the description of historical roles played by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao Ze-Dong in the march of human civilization rouses the indignation of these 'learned, unbiased' people since, according to them, these are 'biased' interpretation of history, coloured by the ideology of Marxism!
But this is a minor point, mentioned to draw attention to the absolute hypocrisy of these people. What is most important in this context is the question ? 'what really Marxism is'? Is it just another ideology, another philosophy, another fixed set of values? Absolutely not. Karl Marx gave the human civilization the means to get at the truth ? the real truth. Marxism is the exposition of truth.
Talking about Marx's contribution in history, Engels once said that Marx did not start from theory. His starting point of enquiry was facts, historical facts. He observed historical facts, analysed those and found that these historical events did actually follow certain laws that he then generalized. This is the path, which all scientific investigation traverses. Start from the objective world ? this is what science says and this is what Marxism also says and so Marxism is science.
The life force of Marxism is objectivity. If someone has to prove Marxism wrong then that person has to prove a Marxist's analysis of actual historical events to be wrong, false, concocted. In a letter written to Joseph Weydemeyer in 5th March, 1852 Marx wrote: "As to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to demonstrate: 1) that the existence of classes is merely linked to particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes to a classless society" [1]. So Marx's materials of investigation were such historical and economic facts, which even the bourgeois historians and economists could not deny and following the logical development of these facts he reached some conclusions. Hence one cannot say that, as because it is 'interpreted' by Marxist outlook, it is wrong. To prove some historical description wrong one has to prove that truth, facts are not such as have been described.
The quest for truth of everything is the driving-force behind the march of civilization. And all along this march there had been struggle between forces, which tried to conceal the truth, and forces, which tried to expose the truth. Bruno had been burnt at the stake ? but the humanity's march for reaching the truth never stopped. Human determination paved this path; sacrifice illuminated it. Bruno and Galileo had their ideals?ideals to get at the truth. But just because they have some ideals, some fixed set of values, they could not be equated with the officers of the Inquisition with the logic that both were "biased with their own particular brand of ideologies". This will be absolute chicanery! And that is what is going on now!
Since Marxism has given human civilization the scientific means to get at the truth the forces, which want to conceal the truth, are taking recourse to various ways. BJP is following one path and the other forces which we have just described is following another, more subtle variety of path.
References : 1. Marx & Engels, Selected correspondence, Moscow, 1982, p 52
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