"Indianisation reforms" in schools another name for communalised curriculum
... Periodic reports emanating from different parts of the country, particularly from the States ruled by the BJP, have underscored the fact that the party and its multifarious associate organisations in the Sangh Parivar are systematically and quietly pursuing the Hindutva agenda in education.
In November 2011, the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka introduced lessons and discourses on the Bhagvad Gita in schools. They sought to make the teaching of the Gita compulsory. But following widespread opposition from political parties, educationists and even Education Department officials, the governments in both the States were forced to make Gita studies optional. A Central government official told Frontline that officials in Karnataka had cautioned the State government that the introduction of Gita studies in the syllabus would lead to divisions among students from different backgrounds.
“On paper, the highly objectionable anti-minority, gender-insensitive contents of various textbooks introduced in Gujarat in 2001 have reportedly been withdrawn. But these portions are still brought into discussion in classrooms across the State.” The portions referred to by Father Prakash Lobo include the ones that brand minority communities as “one of the foremost problems facing the country”. This portion, introduced in the social studies textbook of class IX, was under the chapter titled “Problems of the country and their solutions”. It listed “minority communities” as the foremost problem, followed by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, smuggling, corruption and bribery. The chapter also termed Muslims, Christians and Parsis as “foreigners”. The government claims that these portions have been erased, but reports from different parts of the State indicate that references are made to these portions even now.
Father Prakash Lobo told Frontline that the elaborate but subtle political and ideological game being played in the State’s education sector subverts the constitutionally mandated parameters of the education system. Chief Minister Narendra Modi figures in the classrooms, from the primary to higher levels, in various forms. Modi’s life story is part of the suggested reading for classes at the secondary level. On Teachers Day, you see Modi addressing classes across the country through television and the Internet. “In many ways Teacher’s Day is not the day of teachers in Gujarat, it is Modi projection day..”
