Economic and Political Weekly
December 21, 2002
Commentary

National Textbooks for the Future?

We have been told how the sentiments of self-proclaimed religious leaders have been taken into consideration in rewriting school history textbooks. What is obvious is that the first casualty of this rewriting has been truth. Presumably these so-called religious leaders do not include the quest for truth in their agenda. Neither does the National Council of Educational Research and Training. The case of the Class XI book on ancient India authored by Makkhan Lal.

Kumkum Roy

We have been reviewing textbooks that have been published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for the past few months, and it is quite likely that we have reached a saturation point as far as interest in the issue is concerned. Yet, given the gravity of the situation, it is perhaps necessary to continue with the exercise, in order to draw attention to the serious problems that will arise if these books are recommended and used in schools. It is in this context that we need to scrutinise the Class XI book on ancient India authored by Makkhan Lal.

We need to remember that these are books that will be used by students who consciously opt to study History at the Senior Secondary School level, some of whom will perhaps go on to study History in college and subsequently as well. It is these young men and women who will become History teachers in the next generation. Also, given past experience, one knows that NCERT books have often been used by students preparing for various competitive examinations. As such, what goes into them has widespread implications that cannot be overlooked.

Some statements in the book are confusing, to say the least. I will cite just two instances. One, from page 11, informs us: “they [the British] were worried of the fact that British civilians were getting brahmanised and developing inferiority complex” (p 11). Elsewhere (p 32) we learn that “India is a country with vast variety of rich vegetation and congenial regular weather chain. It is most suited for human habitat. Conditions for population saturation resulting in mass human migrations are more probable here than in any other part of the world like central Asia or Europe.” It is perhaps our loss that we are unable to make sense of such ideas.

Perhaps more worrisome are the inaccurate statements that have slipped into the book at a number of points. Once again, a handful of glaring examples must suffice. We learn on page 86 that “RigVedic society comprised four varnas, namely, Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra.” As I have pointed out elsewhere (‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ in Saffronised and Substandard: A Critique of the New NCERT Textbooks, SAHMAT, New Delhi, 2002, pp 25-38), there is only one reference to the fourfold varna order in the Rig Veda, in one verse out of more than 10,000, and to use this to suggest that society represented in the text was stratified along varna lines is simply inaccurate. It is not justified by any logic of historical reconstruction, but then perhaps we are naďve to expect such logic to operate. What we are up against is the logic of attributing as much antiquity and sanctity as possible to any institution that is regarded as valuable from a narrow, majoritarian, homogenising perspective. So the varna order has to be classified as early Vedic, even if the evidence cannot sustain such a claim.

The second statement, on the same page, flows from similar concerns. “The Vedas prescribe a penalty of death or expulsion from the kingdom to those who kill or injure cows.” Once again, this is inaccurate, simply because the Vedas consist of mantras or prayers to the gods/goddesses. They are not normative texts, and do not prescribe punishments. But then, in the introduction to one of the most popular works on Vedic mathematics, we are told:

It is the whole essence of his [Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Puri who “discovered” Vedic mathematics] assessment of Vedic tradition that it is not to be approached from a factual standpoint but from the ideal standpoint, viz, as the Vedas, as traditionally accepted in India as the repository of all knowledge, should be and not what they are in human possession. That approach entirely turns the tables on all critics, for the authorship of Vedic mathematics then need not be laboriously searched in the texts preserved from antiquity. [italics in the original, General Editor’s Note, p vi, to Vedic Mathematics by Jagadguru Swami Sri Bharati Krsna Tirthaji Maharaja Sankaracarya of Govardhana Matha Puri, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi].

We also learn (pp xxix-xxx):

Revered Guruji used to say that he had reconstructed the sixteen mathematical formulae (given in this text) from the Atharvaveda after assiduous research and ‘Tapas’ for about eight years in the forests surrounding Sringeri. Obviously these formulae are not to be found in the present recensions of Atharvaveda; they were actually reconstructed, on the basis of intuitive revelation, from materials scattered here and there in the Atharvaveda. …In 1957, when he had decided finally to undertake a tour of the USA he re-wrote from memory the present volume, giving an introductory account of the sixteen formulae reconstructed by him.

As such, we should not be surprised that the term Veda can be used to mean just about anything. Such attempts to redefine ‘Vedic’ could have been dismissed as harmless eccentricities in most situations. But, as we have seen in Jhajjar, people can lose their lives if they are thought to have been guilty of killing cows, and it is in that context that we need to ensure that such statements do not go unchallenged.

It is perhaps worth recalling what H D Sankalia, recognised for long as the father of Indian archaeology, said with respect to the cow:

The ban on cow slaughter is indeed of comparatively recent growth, mostly as a reaction against Islam rather than genuine, real love and reverence for the cow. ...From some 3000BC to C700 BC, man in India, as elsewhere in the world, continued to prefer beef to all other forms of animal diet...What the cow/ox in India needs today is good treatment – wholesome food, and fodder and water, and freedom from exploitation by the Hindus at all levels. Their reverence for the cow is always superficial. This was noticed and recorded by the authors of the Bhagavata Purana and the Ramayana centuries ago and regarded as one of the symptoms of the Kali Yuga! The Kali Yuga has increased in its intensity and so also the exploitation of the cow. It is against this exploitation that we must all strive, not for a blanket prohibition of go-vadha. (‘The Cow in History’, Seminar, 1968.)

What is alarming is the scant regard for truth that has accompanied the rewriting of history in the name of updating antiquated scholarship.

Another instance of tampering with evidence occurs on page 90. Here we learn that “Indra is known as Purandara, ‘Lord of Cities’”. This is a shocking travesty of Vedic Sanskrit. It is true that there are several references to Indra, one of the most important gods of the Vedic pantheon, as Purandara in the Rig Veda. But the term purandara means destroyer of pura, and not lord of cities. Pura itself might mean a settlement, perhaps fortified, and not necessarily a city. The only way in which one can arrive at the sense of lord of cities is by replacing d by dh, and creating a term purandhara that does not occur in the Rig Vedic mantras. But clearly, the devotees of Indra will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. And why must Indra become the lord of cities? Well, the Harappan civilisation is by any standards urban, and if it has to be claimed as Vedic, then Indra, as one of the chief gods of the Vedic pantheon, and as a warlike, valorous hero figure, has to be urbanised. What better than a simple sleight of tongue, replacing one consonant by another? So, while on the one hand lip-service continues to be paid to the sanctity of the Vedas, on the other hand, Vedic mantras and words can be transformed to suit present-day agendas.

Consider certain other problems with the book. Let us look at the definition of the Dharmasutras (p18).

The Dharmasutras and the Smritis are rules and regulations for the general public and the rulers. It can be termed in the modern concept as the constitution and the law books for the ancient Indian polity and society.

Such parallels between modern and ancient institutions and practices were frequently drawn by nationalist historians in the early twentieth century, when there was a preoccupation with trying to find parallels for modern institutions in the past. However, in the twentyfirst century, and after more than 50 years of independence, we should be able to move beyond such strategies, which were not necessarily accurate, and acknowledge historical change instead of constructing a picture of a changeless past by all means, fair and foul. Notice also that equating the Constitution with the Dharmasutras obscures and denies the very different histories that have gone into the production of these documents. The Constitution emerged through a process of intense discussion and debate, which is part of our democratic heritage. The Dharmasutras and Smritis, on the other hand, are primarily brahmanical documents and need to be understood as such.

A related problem is the way in which this perspective leads to constructing a picture of uniformity, one that runs counter to the rich diversity of developments in ancient India that have been documented over the last few decades. We read, for instance, on page 35

Although there always had been many states in India but their social and cultural setup had been broadly the same throughout. Sanskrit was the most respected language besides the local languages. States were administered and governed on the basis of law-books called Dharmasastras. Places of worship and pilgrimage are distributed throughout the country. These cultural bonds gave the Indians a sense of unity and nationality.

It is worth examining the implications of this statement, which in fact constitutes one of the running themes of the book. The only diversity that is acknowledged is that of different political powers. Social change is brushed aside and the fact that we have histories of the spread, modification and change in the varna/jati system would be impossible to accommodate within this framework. Linguistic diversity is likewise suppressed. Students would not be allowed to examine the implications of the fact that the earliest inscriptions (including those of the Mauryan ruler Asoka) are primarily in Prakrit, and not in Sanskrit and that the Dharmasastras may have had little or no significance for the Mauryan administration (and those of many other polities) for instance. The fact that the institution of pilgrimage has a history of its own would not be focused on and the fact that nationality is a modern notion would be lost on students who would be taught that it existed from time immemorial. And what about pedagogical strategies? Sadly, the book abounds in statements that are simple assertions, designed to encourage rote learning. Read the following paragraph, (p 84) which is inserted to suggest that the Vedas are of great antiquity:

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, on astronomical grounds, dated Rig Veda to 6000 BC. According to Harmon Jacobi Vedic civilisation flourished between 4500 BC and 2500 BC and some of the Samhitas were composed in the latter half of the period. Famous Sanskritist, Winternitz felt that the Rig Veda was probably composed in the third millennium BC. R K Mookerjee opined that “on a modest computation, we should come to 2500 BC as the time of Rig Veda”. G C Pande also favours a date of 3000 BC or even earlier.

What, if anything, does this tell us about the logic of dating texts? The student will have half a dozen names to remember but little insight into a serious historical problem. To add to the confusion, we have a sentence on page 92 that states “there are other scholars who consider Vedic culture as different from that of the Harappan civilisation.” If we look for any understanding of why they suggest this, we will be disappointed.

Finally, it may be worth considering what happens with four issues that have been marginalised from standard histories. One would have expected that in a new history written in the twentyfirst century, these issues would have found some space. But that is not to be. The first issue that we can consider is the treatment of regions, and I will simply focus on the treatment of Tamilakam, the ancient Tamil region. On page 153 we find a map of south India, where Gangaikondacholapuram and Tanjavur are listed as sites of the Sangam Age. Obviously, chronology has been sacrificed. There is a discrepancy of several centuries between the Sangam Age and the period of the later Chola rulers when these settlements emerged as important urban centres, but then, perhaps from the perspective of the author, notions of time are generally irrelevant for regional history. It is also worth looking at the treatment of the tradition of Bhakti in the text. The Alvars are referred to as Vaisnava saints on page 193, they become Vaisnava devotees on page 199 and finally on page 229 we learn that “The Bhakti movement led by Nayanars (Saiva saint) and Alvars (Vaisnava saint) spread all over the country. These saints went from place to place carrying their message of love and devotion.” Which of these three statements is the student to accept? Clearly, time, space and factual accuracy are trivial matters when reconstructing regional histories. And this is the case of a region whose history has been amongst the best researched in the last few decades.

It may also be useful to see what happens with issues of gender. Women pop in and out of the pages of the book occasionally, in connection with inheritance, where we are told that they could inherit in the absence of “male issues” (p 96) or if they were the only child of their parents (p 86), a situation that is portrayed as being virtually constant (p 160, p 226). None of the concerns with engendering history that have been raised in the last three decades find space in the book. If we expect to find discussions about women in connection with other matters, including their roles in production, or in alternative religious traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism, we will be disappointed.

Perhaps more intriguing is the treatment of the concept of ‘tribe’. Clearly, this has become a dirty word, to be scrupulously eschewed. This may have to do with the fact that ‘tainted’ scholars such as R S Sharma had suggested “that the social formation represented in Vedic literature could best be understood in terms of the category of a tribal society in transition. In the present book, the only reference to tribe occurs in the context of the Kusanas (p 145) who are connected with central Asian tribes. There is also an illustration of tribal coins on page 142, but beyond that the student would be left in the dark about the possibility of tribal societies existing in the past. In other words, tribal populations will now be denied a past and will perhaps figure as a figment of the imagination of Christian missionaries, if at all.

It is also worth examining what happens to the question of untouchability. This almost surfaces twice in the book: once, on page 97, in the context of the later Vedic period, when we learn that “The most glaring evil of the jati system, namely, the concept of untouchability had not yet reared its ugly head”. Then we suddenly stumble on some remarkable information on page 225. “The transformation of a specific profession into jati and the increasing phenomenon of hypergamous unions between different jati led to the rise of mixed jati. Jatis were also formed on the basis of religious sects such as lingayats, virasaivas, svetambaras, and digambaras, etc. The lowest were the antyajatis of whom Chandalas are the most important representatives.” Does this tell us anything at all about the oppressions associated with caste, and how these affected the lives of vast sections of people? And do our children have a right to know and understand these issues?

One is left wondering whether women, dalits, tribals are part of the nation or not, or whether the nation is envisaged as an upper caste, brahmanical construct, centred on the Ganga valley. Surely, the National Council of Educational Research and Training has some responsibilities to discharge towards the vast majority in the country. We have been hearing about how the sentiments of self-proclaimed religious leaders have been taken into consideration in rewriting History. What is obvious is that the first casualty of this rewriting has been truth. Presumably, these so-called religious leaders do not include the quest for truth in their agenda. Neither does the NCERT.

It is in this context that it is absolutely essential that many more of us engage in what has been called the battle of the books. We need to intervene in as many ways as possible, as parents, teachers, concerned citizens of the country, to ensure that future generations of school-going children learn histories that move beyond a preoccupation with dynastic vicissitudes, and can be equipped to understand and intervene in an increasingly complicated social scenario.