Violence against Muslims, casteless and rights activists is cut out of Indian textbooks. The students will also not learn about the Prime Minister’s previous mistakes.
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When Indian young people return to school after the holidays, a whole new curriculum awaits them.
Students will no longer learn that their country was ruled by Muslims for over two centuries. What does not fit into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account of India as a country just for Hindus is going to come out.
Phrases like this are also cut off: “A majority can take power in a country and use it to oppress religious and cultural minorities.”
Lessons from the past are deleted
The newspaper The Indian Express has examined 21 textbooks from 6th to 12th grade. They have looked at the subjects history, sociology and social studies. The survey shows that the curriculum is cut in many areas. But one in particular stands out.
– There is almost nothing left about protests and social movements. And what remains has undergone major changes.
This is what journalist Ritika Chopra says in the news podcast of The Indian Express, «3 things». She is behind the survey.
Also one of the worst periods of Indian democracy in modern history, often called «The Emergency»A period of national emergency from 1975 to 1977, when Indira Gandhi was prime minister., is almost completely cut off. During this period, national elections were put on hold, and dissidents were imprisoned. But the section that explains why this type of abuse of power is dangerous for democracy has been removed.
Dalits, often called “casteless”, have long had few or no rights in India. The new curriculum also removes references to those who have struggled to improve Dalit conditions.
A fundamental change
– India is slipping away from democracy, says Professor Elisabeth Eide at Oslo Met. She and historian Terje Skaufjord have written the book “India – on the road to Hindu nationalism”.
Eide explains that the Indian government, led by it Hindu nationalistHindu nationalism is an ideology that claims that India is a country for Hindus, and not other religious groups. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to promote a narrative that India is a Hindu state. They do this by rewriting or omitting parts of the story that point to the opposite. For example The MughalsAn empire that spanned most of present-day India and Pakistan. It lasted from 1526 to 1857.a period of more than 200 years when it was Muslims, not Hindus, who ruled the country.
– It creates a basis for a Hindu nationalist state, which is something completely different from the secular state India was born as, she says.
Eide believes this is a fundamental change that is leading India in an anti-democratic direction.
She refers to the V-Dem Institute in Sweden, an institute that works with democracy measurement: They call India one of the key democracies in the world, which is now on its way to becoming what they call “autocracies with elections”.
India is often called “the world’s largest democracy”. But in recent years, they have slipped down the democracy index of the V-Dem. Last year, the country also lost its status as a full-fledged democracy on the Freedom House Freedom Index.
The Prime Minister’s stain
Another important historical event that has been removed is the Gujarat uprising of 2002. The three-day wave of violence, in which Hindu nationalists attacked Muslims, took place while Modi was the prime minister of the state of Gujarat. He has been criticized for not doing enough to stop the violence, which ended in more than 1,000 people losing their lives, most of them Muslims.
– It is obvious why this is removed. It was a cruel assault that happened on Modi’s guard, Eide explains.
– The Gujarat uprising is a stain on the Prime Minister’s reputation. To remove it from the textbooks is money laundering by Modi.
–“Streamlining” of the curriculum
The organization National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCRT) shall design the curriculum for primary school on behalf of the government. They call the cuts a “streamlining”. The goal is to make the curriculum less overwhelming for school students who have missed out on teaching during the pandemic, they claim.
– School students have missed a lot of learning during this time. We want to reduce the amount of curriculum to help them, say spokespersons for the organization, according to “3 things”.
Ritika Chopra believes this is not very credible and points out that the government proposed making big cuts already in 2018. The BJP party also made changes the last time they were in government, from 1998 to 2004.
Eide agrees: – This is an obvious excuse, and it does not stand for believers. It is selective and political removal, she says.
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