“60-70 percent of our demands have been accommodated in some form or the other.” – KG Suresh, spokesperson of Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal (BSM)
For the uninitiated, the BSM is one of the many affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with the motto ‘completely Bharatiya system of education rooted in Bharatiya culture at all levels’ (sic). At this very moment the country is reeling under the abrupt scrapping of pre-matric scholarship for SC/ST/OBC students and Maulana Azad National Fellowship for minorities. Such clear efforts to uphold Sangh’s idea of this saffron, culturally monolithic, exclusionary ‘Bharat’ , is seen throughout the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 document. Although all BJP-led central governments have tried to saffronize education, what sets this particular exercise apart is the codification of steps for moulding education in the ‘right’ direction. Now, it is time to decode these policies!
At the very introduction the document states, ’The rich heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge and thought has been a guiding light for this Policy.’ This ‘Indian knowledge system’ phrase recurs throughout the document without any concrete definition. It omits the rich tradition of Buddhist or Jain schools of philosophy, the materialist schools of Charvaka, Kapil, Kanad, contributions of the mediaeval Sultanate and Mughal dynasty alongside the role of the indigenous people of India in conserving nature and natural resources. It also promotes the Brahmanical ideals of ‘dharma’ and ‘karma’ that form the ideological basis of the caste system. It upholds ‘traditional Indian values’ like ‘ seva, ahimsa, swachchhata, satya,…’ which is a terrible mockery of the fact that the ‘avarnas’ or Dalits have been historically engaged solely in manual scavenging.
Another striking aspect of the document is the emphasis put on Sanskrit language while there is only passing mention of India’s other classical languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia as well as Pali, Persian and Prakrit. The document directs schools to offer Sanskrit ‘strongly’ as part of the disputed ‘three-language formula’. All higher education institutions have been directed to come up with departments devoted to promotion of ‘Sanskrit Knowledge Systems’ (SKS) that include pseudoscientific practices like Ayurveda and Yoga.
The document also opens up a provision for including local ‘volunteers’ in aiding day-to-day activities of government schools. For BJP strongholds this translates to inclusion of swayamsevaks in schools. It advocates vocational training starting from as early as grade 6 like ‘carpentry, electric work, metal work, gardening, pottery making, etc., as decided by States and local communities and as mapped by local skilling needs.’ This provision in the wrong hands will facilitate ways to impose caste-based occupation very early on.
Coming to the implementation, the state of Karnataka has long been serving the Sangh Parivaar as a saffron lab. Expectedly, this became the first state to implement the National Education Policy, 2020 last year at undergraduate levels. This year the target has been school education starting with overhaul of all government textbooks. The changes were made by a textbook revision committee constituted in September, 2021, headed by Rohith Chakrathritha- a known right-wing writer and orator.
Some of the glaring changes are given here. A lesson on Ambedkar’s early days has been deleted. Stories of Tipu Sultan, Sangolli Rayanna etc. have been replaced by examples from Vedas and Mahabharata
in a social science textbook. RSS’s ‘Akhand Bharat’ map has been introduced as well. A chapter wherein VD Savarkar, the man who recruited soldiers for the British Army for its fight against the Azad Hind Fauj, is portrayed as a nationalist icon. A big change is the introduction of a speech by RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar titled “Nijavada Adarsha Purusha Yaaragabeku?“ (Who should be the real role model?) translated into Kannada. Around the same time, the Karnataka Government submitted 26 position papers making several regressive and pseudoscientific inputs towards the review and re-design of the National Curriculum Framework. One of these papers suggests removal of eggs from mid- day meals as Bramhins deem it non-Sattvik!
Historically, fascists have always targeted education as their primary medium of propaganda. This Modi-led fascist regime represents a nexus of neoliberalism and Hindutva, NEP 2020 is the realisation of that very philosophy in the realm of education.
All democratic and progressive forces must make a concerted effort to resist these policies to prevent communal poison from entering the minds of newer generations.
