Education News

Uttar Pradesh Anything goes • The sound of a conch shell banishes poisonous insects and evil spirits. • King Ashoka converted to Buddhism, the doctrine of non-violence spread. People started considering hunting, animal sacrifice and even the use of weapons bad. Slowly cowardice spread through the entire country. • Sitaji was a chaste woman. With the help of your teacher, list five other chaste women like her. • Christian priests were found on every square, running down Hindu Gods, Goddesses and Muslim prophets and praising Christianity. • Dronacharya was right in asking for Eklavya’s thumb. • There should be unquestioned faith in Islam, belief in its principles, Allah and life after death. If you think these regressive fundamentalist generalisations are the ravings of religious loonies, you’re wrong. This is what an estimated 10 million children in the almost 14,000 Saraswati Shishu Mandirs (SSM) and 20,000 plus madrasas across Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous (166 million) state — are currently learning in schools. A 46-page report, prepared by a Lucknow-based NGO (non-government organisation) Saanjhi Duniya has culled these statements from text books prescribed for SSMs, (schools funded and run by Vidya Bharti, the educational wing of the RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), madrasas (schools run under the supervision of Islamic clerics) and under the aegis of the Council of Anglo Indian Schools. Comments Vibhuti Narain Rai president of Saanjhi Duniya: “The curriculums devised by the SSMs and madrasa managements are promoting rank communalism and hatred of other religions. The books lack scientific temper and propagate superstition. For example wars between Mughals and Rajputs in history books are presented in communal shades.” Prof. Roop Rekha Verma, former vice-chancellor of Lucknow University under whose guidance the study was conducted, describes this a matter of “grave concern”. “Such hotch potch of mythology and history has disastrous consequences, especially since the textbooks are for young and impressionable children. Instead of inculcating modern values, they brainwash children with patriarchal, casteist and sexist values. There is absolute lack of scientific temper in them,” says Verma. Such unlettered fundamentalism and lack of scientific temper is also evident in science texts. The maths text of SSMs for instance, uses Hindu-centric examples. One question in the chapter on addition and subtraction requires children to arrive at a number from sadhus bathing in the mahakumbh after some depart for Nasik and Mathura. The Saanjhi Duniya report cites several other such examples to prove its point. Gauravshali Bharat (the prescribed history textbook in SSMs) depicts the map of India in the form of a temple with a sacrificial altar in the centre surrounded by pictures of religious swamies, Chanakya and Hindu kings who fought against Muslim invaders. The first chapter states that “Humans are the descendants of Manu” thereby rubbishing the Darwinian theory of evolution. According to the class V history book, “Apart from great men, even God has taken birth in various forms in this country.” Unsurprisingly caste and class biases are common in textbooks imposed upon students in SSM and madrasa schools. The story of the legendary Shravan Kumar includes a recitation in which the protagonist tells a child that…