SACW - 4 Nov 2005 : Kashmir Troops / Gujarat riot trials / History syllabi

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 4 Nov, 2005 | Dispatch No. 2171

[Please Note there will be No SACW posts between Novmber 5 - 11]

[1] Withdrawing troops from Kashmir (Mubashir Hasan)
[2] India: Much more than just the bakery (Editorial - Hindustan Times)
[3] India: NCERT's new history syllabus (Asghar Ali Engineer)
[4] India: The national curriculum framework: A Comment (Vinod Raina*)
[5] India:Book on 1931 Kanpur riots released

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[1]


The News
November 3, 2005

Withdrawing troops from Kashmir

by Dr Mubashir Hasan


        There is a talk of withdrawing the armies of India
and Pakistan from the former state of Jammu and
Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control.   Such
proposals are premature.  The troops can only be
withdrawn when the withdrawing parties are reasonably
certain that the evacuated areas shall not fall prey
to ethnic cleansing and widespread and bloody
disorders.  The probability of anarchical behaviour
can never be ruled out in our culture.
        The imperial Britain left the subcontinent in 1947
and despite the presence of the greatest political
leaders, subcontinent had produced, the remnants of
the mighty Indian army could not prevent the horrible
massacres taking place in Delhi and the former
province of the Punjab.
        A serious study is required of the reasons that lead
to great human tragedies which took place in Congo,
Bangladesh of 1971, East Timor, former state of
Yugoslavia, in the post-Shah Iran and even in today‚s
Iraq.
        Our history is full of instances when the governments
in the subcontinent had to quell breakouts of mindless
frenzy in sections of our populace.  Our masses,
sometimes under the leadership of the classes, are
prone to lose their sense of compassion, decency,
logic and ethical conduct, once they gain the
perception, rightly or wrongly, that the clout of the
power exercising control over them has weakened; the
moment of their freedom has arrived and they are free
to avenge the wrongs, real or imagined, perpetrated on
them and their past generations by members of the
ruling elites, racial, ethnic or religious groups.
Knowing no better how to overthrow the perceived yokes
of oppression, they slip into the mould of their
oppressors.  They murder and torture, loot and plunder
without mercy.
        In the affairs of state, the decision to withdraw the
elements of physical power, maintained in reserve for
aiding civil administration is a very delicate one if
high tragedies are to be avoided.  Ultimately, the
military shall have to be withdrawn from Jammu and
Kashmir following a settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
However, the conditions necessary for post-withdrawal
peace and tranquillity must be created first.  The
withdrawal of the military personnel from both sides
of the Line of Control should take place only when a
civil administration, which is capable of maintaining
law and order, has come into existence.
        The prevailing balance of power in the Indian
administered and Pakistani-supervised Kashmir leaves
much to be desired.  The administrations on both
sides, responsible for maintaining law and order, are
heavily dependent on the aid provided by the military,
paramilitary and intelligence apparatuses of India and
Pakistan respectively.  Apparently the role of the
Indian forces on the east of the Line of Control is
far more weighty and decisive than the role of their
Pakistani counterparts in Azad Kashmir.  Considered
qualitatively the roles are identical.  The civil
administrations cannot survive without the military
backups, more so on the Indian side.
        The heavy military and paramilitary presence on the
Indian side is only an exaggerated form of the
requirements of law and order all over the
subcontinent.  More than half of the Indian military
and a large of the Pakistan military are deployed on
internal security duties.  According to the 2004-2005
Annual Report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, New
Delhi „at present, 76 districts in 9 States of Andhra
Pradesh, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West
Bengal are afflicted with Naxalism. CPML-PW and Maoist
Communist Centre-India (MCC-I) have been trying to
increase their influence and operations in some parts
of three other States, namely, Tamil Nadu, Karanataka
and Kerala and also in certain new areas in some of
the already affected States‰.  In many Indian states
and in some provinces of Pakistan, the law and order
situation is delicately balanced.
        The social contract between the state and the people
is conspicuous by its absence in both the countries.
Only the physical coercive power of the state stands
between authoritarian rule and anarchy.  The people
have little or no trust in police or magistracy.  They
hate police.  The credibility of political and
military leaders is very very low.  The morale of the
administration is far from high.  The governments
everywhere ˆ local state and federal ˆ are highly
dependent on aid from non-civil sources.
        No chances should be taken in the two Kashmirs.  It
is time that political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir
rose to the occasion.  They must realise that there
are grave lessons to be learnt from the failures of
the great leaders like Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and
Liaqat Ali in getting the rights of self-determination
for their peoples.  Mujibur Rehman and Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto also failed to give their peoples the kind of
the structure of governance for which they had
struggled.  The masses in the entire subcontinent
remain under-nourished, illiterate, unhealthy and
without proper protection against weather and natural
calamities.  The people at large, masses as well as
classes refuse to cooperate with the institutions of
the state and remain at odds with it and with each
other.
        The governments of Pakistan and India must encourage
and cooperate with various groups in the former state
in evolving a new dispensation acceptable to all
parties.  The two governments must create conditions
that dialogue to resolve the issues can begin.  The
civil societies in both the countries can also be of
immense help in this task.
        If some form of reviving the unity of the former
state is on cards, then attention has to be paid to
sharing of power between the potential power centres
such as Srinagar, Jammu, Leh, Muzaffarabad and others.
What powers will be enjoyed by tehsils, districts,
cities, provinces and by the central entity where
every area will be represented.  Understandings
reached along these lines will enable the peoples of
the former state to agree among themselves to decide
their links with New Delhi and Islamabad.  When they
come to some agreement, they will also be able to form
governments which have the confidence of the people
and will be able to maintain peace and order.  The
military shall automatically become redundant.


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[2]


Hindustan Times
October 26, 2005

Editorial

Much more than just the bakery


There is a spectre hanging over India’s secular democracy: the ghost of 
the 2002 Gujarat massacres. On Tuesday, when a fast-track court 
acquitted 108 people of the charge of murdering two Muslim men during 
the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, we could hear the mocking laughter of 
the malign ghoul once again.
That the judiciary — the moral backbone of the country — felt obliged, 
once again, to criticise the conduct of the Gujarat police in first 
failing to prevent the incident and then failing to identify the accused 
despite being present at the spot is yet another reminder of that, even 
three years after the riots, authorities in Gujarat are freely able to 
subvert justice without being made accountable for it.

The Supreme Court’s severe indictment of the Gujarat government and
police in the Best Bakery case had given us hope that the victims would 
finally see justice being done. Its order of a retrial of the case — in 
which 21 people were acquitted by the high court for lack of evidence — 
shifting it to Maharashtra this time round, was meant to serve as a 
clear warning to the Modi government that its ‘abuse and mutilation’ of 
the justice delivery system won’t be tolerated.

However, this beacon of light is in danger of being extinguished. The 
Best Bakery case has been compromised by the inconsistency of key witness
Zaheera Shaikh, and with other witnesses turning hostile. And, in the 
numerous other cases being tried within Gujarat — there were at least 
2,000 left dead by the riots — authorities are actively conniving with 
the accused and threatening witnesses to make these trials a mockery of 
justice. In acquitting the accused for lack of evidence this week, the 
Gujarat court left no one in any doubt about this fact. For the sake of 
its own conscience and self-esteem, India needs to figure out a more 
efficacious way of delivering justice to the victims of the massacre. 
Failure to do so will encourage a climate of impunity whose consequences 
can only be malign.

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[3]

Secular Perspective
November 1-15, 2005

NCERT'S NEW HISTORY‚ SYLLABUS

by Asghar Ali Engineer

The NCERT has recently announced a new history textbooks from V to X 
standards. It is a very welcome step, a step which, should have been 
taken decades ago. History textbooks have polarised Indians on the basis 
of religion. Nothing was changed all these years and history textbooks 
written by the British rulers to divide us continued to be taught with 
some changes here and there. This did us great deal of damage. What was 
worse that after independence Jawaharlal Nehru had dreamt of spreading 
science and technology through schools, never took any shape.

The colonial education system was devised to conform to the authorities 
rather than to develop a critical mind capable of critical inquiry. 
However, after independence no attempt was at all made to change the 
education system qualitatively as our politicians too wanted conformist 
minds and not critical ones. Nehru had thought that within few years the 
scientific temperament would spread and communal forces will loose ground.

However, quite to the contrary happened and communal forces began to
consolidate themselves. The most important reason, among them, was our 
stagnant education system. It hardly responded to new developing 
situation. In small towns lower middle classes tended to be very 
conservative and in bigger cities, middle classes too continued to be 
orthodox for number of reasons. Only a new education system could have 
created new critical outlook among the educated.

But neither our educationists not our politicians were prepared for any 
change. The Kothari Commission had produced very good report and made 
highly useful recommendations for changes in our education system. But 
it continued to gather dust. No politician even dared to have look at 
it, much less implement it. The Kothari Commission Report, though not 
revolutionary, but certainly could have introduced healthy changes and 
could have created better understanding of different religious values.

In our text books religions are presented very sketchily and in place of
values, rituals and certain institutions, which emphasise differences, 
are presented. It creates more misunderstanding about others religions. 
One can say it promotes hostility rather than proper understanding. In 
certain states textbooks display open hostility towards Islam and 
Christianity and are full of distorted information. How could such 
textbooks create enlightened or critical minds?

And history textbooks, less said about them, the better. Most of them 
divided our past in periods based on religion i.e. the Hindu, Muslim and 
British period as done by the Britishers in their own interests. Later 
it was changed to ancient, medieval and modern periods. However, even 
then the contents did not change much. Now what the NCERT has proposed 
is far better.

It now talks of "our pasts", past being in plural. According to the 
Times of India news on October 27, 2005 (Mumbai Edition, p-15) "For the 
first time post-independence, Indian history would have no divisions of 
ancient, medieval and modern period. Instead, from class VI, when 
history is introduced as a component of social studies, the subject 
would be taught as 'Our Pasts'. In class VI it would be mainly the 
ancient past with an inquisitive " when, where and how" as the 
introductory chapter. In class VII 'Our Past II‚ introduces new themes 
like "social change: mobile and settled communities‚ in which there 
would be a discussion on tribes, nomads and itinerant groups."

Then in class VII other new highlights are teaching of popular beliefs 
and religious debates. In every section there is emphasis on case 
studies. In class VIII, new themes of women, caste system, education and 
post-independence India have been introduced." The report in Times 
further continues, "as a student progresses to class IX, history 
syllabus becomes choice based. Students can choose from the French 
Revolution, Russian Revolution and Rise of Nazism. But the big change is 
the introduction of the theme of 'Culture, Identity and Society.'

'Further in X history of novel would be introduced. By Senior Secondary,
students would be learning 1857 and Partition through contemporary and 
oral accounts of victims and survivors. Even the importance of 
newspapers as a source of history would be taught.'  Needless to say 
these are important changes as far as history textbooks are concerned. 
It would no more be divisive as it is today as the history textbooks are 
ruler-centred and not people centred. It appears from the report that it 
would be more people centred.

Though there is no mention of composite culture in the report one hopes 
the concept of composite culture will be introduced. In a 
people-oriented or subaltern history peoples culture should play an 
important role. If history book is people oriented it would be 
integrative rather than divisive. There is another important question, 
which has to be taken into account.

Generally the NCERT textbooks are taught in Central Schools and not 
state-run schools. Central schools are for children of Central 
Government employees and cover very few students. It is state-run 
schools which cover the bulk of the students are generally not covered 
by NCERT books and all the damage is done to these millions of students 
through textbooks very shabbily written and giving distorted version of 
history. Worse still is the way history is taught in Ekal Vidyalayas and 
Shishu Vihars run by the RSS. In these schools history is taught in most 
unabashedly communal manner. Islam and Christianity are demonised 
directly.

However, the first step to teach 'Our Pasts‚ rather than Hindu and 
Muslim pasts' is very welcome with emphasis on people and their 
cultures. The second step should be to shape critical minds for which 
politicians may not be ready. Someone has to take bold initiatives. Much 
should also be left to imagination of students. One should not 
under-rate students‚ faculties.

Our Centre conducts many children‚s camps and interactive sessions with
children. We have always found that children are very creative and 
imaginative.

If they are given freedom to think they display their ingenious talents. 
They do not display communal tendencies unless injected with it by 
parents, teachers or through textbooks. Unfortunately our education 
system does not allow freedom of thought and creativity to our children. 
They are burdened with shabbily written textbooks and made to strictly 
conform. That destroys their ingenuity and creativity.

Another problem is teachers themselves. Often the teachers are more 
sectarian and communal than the textbooks themselves. Even if we 
introduce best textbooks and give it to narrow-minded or communal minded 
teachers, they will misuse it and distort its message. Thus teachers as 
human agents, are more important than mute textbooks which cannot give 
their message by themselves.

Thus it is equally, if not more important, to train teachers from time 
to time to reorient their thinking in the right direction. At college 
level there are professional training courses for teachers in sociology, 
political science etc. but no courses for communal harmony, cultural and 
religious pluralism. And no course at all for schoolteachers. Like 
textbooks one should lay emphasis on orientation courses for teachers. 
At school level teachers generally come from lower middle classes with 
very narrow -minded approach. So it is highly necessary to reorient 
their thinking after recruitment and before entrusting them with 
teaching work.

No facilities are available even in B.Ed. and D.Ed. courses. Our Centre
approaches various colleges of education for workshops on communal 
harmony, religious and cultural pluralism etc. But our small 
organisation cannot do much in this vast field. It is for state 
governments to see that teachers are imparted such re-orientation 
courses. In fact this work needs to be done on war footing, if we are 
serious about promoting peace and harmony in our society.

It is important to note that India is the unique country, which has been
tremendously plural religiously, culturally and linguistically and yet 
remained peaceful for centuries. It was in modern times that due to 
British policies of divide and rule, on one hand, and, power struggle 
among various religious and regional groups, that cleavages became 
prominent and religious, cultural and linguistic identities became more 
and more important as an important resource for political mobilisation.

Religion too, is more a source of identity than morality. Religion‚s 
role as an important resource for morality will have to be re-emphasised 
as in power struggle it has been de-emphasised. Thus a multi prolonged 
approach with sincere commitment to religious and cultural pluralism is 
needed to use our education system as an important resource for secular, 
scientific and rational thinking.

It requires all out efforts and not disjointed half-hearted efforts as 
they are being made today to bring about communal harmony. The result is 
that we witness communal riots every now and then in some or the other 
part of the country. Any religious occasion is a potential danger for 
irruption of communal violence. It is a shame that we cannot stop this 
more than half a century after our independence.


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[4]

Seminar
August 2005

The national curriculum framework: Comment
by Vinod Raina

IT has taken a year for the UPA government to produce its first promised
policy document in education, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
The build up and the processes that have gone into preparing the NCF
2005 would appear to be much more academically sound and wide-ranging
compared to the ham-handed manner in preparing the previous version, the
NCF 2000 by the NDA government. The NDA effort, that did not have the
approval of the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) since it
wasn’t even constituted by the then government, had elicited widespread
criticism. The criticism was, however, most severe regarding the attempt
of the NCF 2000 to redefine the approach to curriculum design in a
manner seen by many as at variance with the values enshrined in the
Constitution. The subsequent attempt to rewrite history books was only
one of the questionable actions that followed the NCF 2000.

NCF 2005 squarely locates itself within the rubric of constitutional
values, namely democracy, debate, secularism, social justice, equity,
scientific temper and so on. To that extent it seems to have corrected
the distortions that had appeared via NCF 2000, thereby preparing the
ground for the UPA government to claim that it has fulfilled the promise
of ‘detoxification’ in a substantial manner. However, the major effort
of the four volume NCF 2005 has been to deal with the question of school
education from as many as twenty-one viewpoints, being the number of
focus groups that have contributed to the effort. The first volume that
delineates the framework is distilled from the twenty-one focus group
reports that constitute the other three volumes, the total running into
about a thousand pages! These reports cover subjects ranging from
mathematics, social sciences and sciences, language, work, art and music
and much more. A number of eminent people from various professions, from
all over the country, were involved in the process, lending a degree of
credibility and respectability to the effort.

Anyone who has practised critical pedagogy stressing on understanding
and problem solving, and an approach that stresses on construction of
knowledge rather than its mere transmission as I have, or believes in
it, cannot but endorse the NCF 2005. But those who did not participate
in preparing the document, as I didn’t, need to look at it much more
objectively while doing so, since those who did would naturally be more
inclined to explain, defend and promote it.

In that context the immediate question that arises is – What is the
purpose of the document? One could ascribe two purposes to it – one to
help initiate a national debate for a systemic change in the current
school methodology and content, and the second to help institutions
charged with the academic responsibility for school education – the
SCERT’s, DIET’s and so on – to change their way of working and approach
to the content and process of education. To me it is doubtful whether
either of these purposes will be substantially served by the draft
document. And that has essentially to do with the manner in which it has
been written.

The NCF reads as an exhaustive compilation of assertions and opinions
for a particular approach to education. Much as one might agree with
these assertions, the document does not seek to engage in a debate with
those who have differing views, since it mostly /asserts/ rather than
/argues./ One is not talking of ideological differences here, but
pedagogical debates such as the question of using the mother tongue as a
medium of instruction and the place of English in the primary stage;
whether to have examinations or not; softening the borders of tightly
defined subject areas at the elementary stage; legitimising local
knowledge in order to connect the school to the life of the child, hence
decentralising the teaching-learning process; linking education to the
knowledge base and political economy of labour, in particular that of
the informal sector; using conflict situations in the child’s experience
as a pedagogy of learning; celebrating and negotiating plurality and so on.

These are questions that confuse and exercise the minds of a majority of
parents, teachers and even intellectuals. From this document they are
likely get a particular viewpoint, that is if they can wade through it.
But I wonder if it will engage with their apprehensions or fears about
their children’s education. At best they can be reassured that these are
the opinions of eminent men and women, coming from the premier school
education institution, the NCERT. Hence, it has the requisite authority,
and one may believe in it even without comprehension. It must be right –
just as a medical doctor or a scientist is supposed to be for a common
person. But that actually flies in the face of what the document is
asserting – that education and understanding should not be based on the
authority of the teacher, book or the expert, but must be transacted in
a manner that takes into account the recipient’s questions, experiences
and understandings. The promotion of the document also seems to violate
what it tries to preach. At the CABE meeting where it was presented by
the Director, NCERT on 7 June, great pains were taken to highlight the
eminence of the people behind it. This might have been tactical, to list
the academicians in order to deflect from the political polarity of the
/sangh parivar/ and the other political parties. But that didn’t prevent
the BJP ministers from staging the customary walkout and worse, did not
prevent the condemnable vandalism of Vigyan Bhawan by the ABVP lumpens.

To be true to what the document tries to preach and prescribe, the
emphasis would have to be more on the quality of arguments rather than
on the eminence of the people who made the assertions. However, as the
draft stands now, as a document for debate till it finally comes back
for acceptance to the CABE in August, one hopes its assertions would
have been transformed to arguments supported by evidence and research in
its main body that are comprehensible to the ordinary masses, parents,
teachers and educationists within SCERTs and DIETs. That is important if
different books, methodologies, processes and examinations are to be put
into place for every child in India, rather than for a few that are
directly covered by the NCERT and CBSE. Otherwise, like the Kothari
Commission Report and many such excellent previous documents, the only
purpose it may end up serving is to become a question for B.Ed and M.Ed
students who will be asked to write a ‘short note’ or the ‘salient
features’ of the NCF 2005! And that will be the ultimate insult to what
it preaches

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[5]


Webindia123, India - Oct 27, 2005

*Book on 1931 Kanpur riots released*

Hindu and Muslim communities have enjoyed inherently strong ties for 
centuries and all depiction to the contrary by colonial historians are 
untrue, according to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice Chancellor B 
B Bhattacharya.

Releasing a book last evening on the 1931 Kanpur Riots in which a 
protest against the execution of Bhagat Singh and others turned into a 
communal conflagaration, Prof Bhattacharya said human beings were 
inclined to do more good than bad but bad thoughts compound into the 
worst outcome.

''All of us should believe in good and trust in good,'' he added.

The book, titled 'The Communal Problem: Report of the Kanpur Riots 
Enquiry Committee', has been compiled by the National Book Trust and is 
a part of the report of the six-member committee appointed by the Indian 
National Congress (Karachi Session, 1931) to inquire into the riots.

''The book provides a broad perspective of the centuries-long 
association of
both the communities and as a result, it puts at rest the deeply ingrained
perception of their antagonistic relationship,'' Prof Bhattacharya said.

''It is not a typical inquiry report that talks about the violence that 
broke out in Kanpur in 1931 but it is one of the insightful analysis of 
the genesis and spread of communalism in India,'' he added.

Eminent historian Mridula Mukherjee said apart from challenging the 
so-called irrational relations of Hindus and Muslims, the book also 
makes an impassioned plea against the ''perverted view'' of Indian 
history as portrayed by colonial writers and administrators.

Among others present on the occasion were NBT chairman Bipin Chandra and
director Nuzhat Hassan.

NBT is an autonomous organisation under the department of Secondary and 
Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

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