Just what history is taught to us

According to me one of the most damning repurcussions of Nehru's legacy has been the (mis) representation of Indian History.
The current HR minister Arjun Singh continues to intoxicate our students with tons & tons of lies bundled in the (NCERT) history books. These students grow up to believe what was taught in foundation years of education & continue to blend with the conventional (official) wisdom.
I won't be surprised if current generation considers Joseph Stalin & Mao as their heroes & disregard Shivaji Maharaj & Rana Pratap as mere pushovers.
Every country's government tries to inculcate strong nationalism & pride in the country's culture & heritage via history books. It is a very strong medium through which the countries future can be secured via students. Unfortunately the current government as its predecessors in past knows only to debunk Indian Nationalism & promote Leftist fiction as history.


So what, this is secular history
Udayan Namboodiri
Pioneer, May 25, 2005


NCERT's "secular" history text for Class VII students is called Modern India. It has dozens of photographs spread over its 273 pages. But there is only one famous personality who has deserved a full- page display. You may be entitled to think that only Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, or Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India, or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, modern India's greatest hero, deserves this respect.
Surprise, surprise, it is none of the three. A giant picture of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin frowns tyrannically at the 14 year-old beholder while Russians in greatcoats are shown running towards the (partially obscured by Lenin's head) "Winter Palace". As if this was not enough, the text for Class IX students has devoted 11 pages to glorifying the so-called "Russian Revolution". Here too, one finds a full-page photograph of the Tsar's palace burning, another of a room with chairs overturned, followed by reproductions of "revolutionary" posters, then people reading the same posters, a big map of the USSR, a scene from the film Battleship Potemkin and, of course, good old Lenin (this time more benign faced) saluting.
Now, what is NCERT up to? What is the relevance of Lenin in a book for Indian children, and that too, in a book on "modern Indian history"? Of course, the authors, Indira and Arjun Dev, have strategically placed a discussion on "India and the modern world" in the opening chapter, ostensibly to give a global context and the larger backdrop shaping developments in India. But, what profound pedagogy justifies the inclusion of a character from Russian history, which the Russians themselves have discarded? If this "revolution" - actually the Russians of today call it just a coup - just had to be included, why the unifocal approach and complete shying away from the real personality of Lenin -which school kids in his own country are now learning about? To the "eminent" historians of India, the tribe was gifted a second innings in power in Indian history academia by HRD Minister Arjun Singh, this is the stuff of "scientific" history. And what is that? Romila Thapar, the most famous face of Marxist historiography, was reported by the CPI(M)'s mouthpiece, People's Democracy, in its December 9, 2001 issue as saying: "History has become a precise and analytical discipline and cannot be reduced to anybody's opinion".
Now, that is something to turn EH Carr, the tallest of the Leftist school, in his grave. In his seminal work, What is History, Carr had (perhaps unwittingly) described what best describes the Thapar genre: "History is a subject that cannot be considered as a foolproof discipline because the writing of History is affected by the ideology and the political background (of the historian) as well as the purpose he is working for". After making distortion and falsification a fine art, pinko history is set to enter the realm of "science" thanks to NCERT. To give their disingenuous strategy of turning schoolgoers into little commies, "secularism" has come in handy. The next step in this plan seems to be overhauling the curriculum altogether and introducing newer and newer windows of attack on aspects of India's heritage which, in the convoluted wisdom of Singh's communist backers, constitutes "Hindutva". According to the new National Curriculum Framework for School Education which will most certainly be passed by the Central Advisory Board on Education (The Pioneer) has accessed a copy ) at its forthcoming June 7 meeting, the main focus of study of Indian history in the secondary stage will be "contemporary India".
Says the document: "Contemporary India should be discussed from the perspectives of the adivasi, dalit and other marginalised populations." In keeping with this new line of attack, NCERT has already roped in "experts" from the discredited fields of historiography like subaltern study and the Ekalavya school - both of which specialise in nothing other than Hindu baiting.
Contrast this with the Curriculum Framework developed in the NDA period. It placed a thrust on "helping learners understand and appreciate India's cultural heritage and learn about India's contribution to world civilisation" (page 66 of NCFSE-2000 document). Why this was considered "saffronisation" we will never know. But now, to ensure that a new generation of Indians come up with absolutely no idea about its heritage, NCERT is about to dumb down History altogether so that the sceptre of "saffronisation" never re-emerges.]