AISA Condemns the recent distortions made in the Outcome-based Curriculum Framework of BA History by the University Grants Commission!

The writing of history, as much as it is a laboured task of the historian, also works as a soft power manoeuvre for the ruling class. British education, for example, divided Indian history based on religious lines as expounded by James Mill, which served well the policy of ‘divide and rule’. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler knew the role of history writing and paid attention to driving away secular history from their textbooks, along with outright burning of Marxian texts. In these times, when the sales of ‘Mein Kampf’ have drastically risen, the UGC is all set to push RSS-BJP’s mission of saffronising education and history through distortions, misinterpretations and lies.

In an attempt to saffronize syllabi , opening with chapters like ‘the idea of Bharat’ and the eternity of the same, the UGC has made several changes to the syllabi of BA History. The Changes are structural and repudiate the commission’s initial claims of not more than 20-30 percent deviation of the same from the main syllabus.

CHANNELIZING HISTORY ALONG COMMUNAL LINES
• The present syllabus lays great emphasis on the significance of the Vedic and the ancient Hindu texts, sidelining comparatively secular texts like Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Kalidasa’s poems.

• This comes along with the Erasure of a major portion of the medieval History. Where previously three papers across three semesters were dedicated to understand the history of this era, now only one paper has been kept to compensate for the same.

• Contentious and Volatile words like ‘Invasion’ which had been previously skipped, has now been used to describe events with respect to the Muslim emperors whereas the activities of the East India Company has been defended with more mild and politically accurate terms like “Territorial expansion”

• In two papers: art appreciation and Indian cultural heritage there is little to no emphasis on Mughal and sultanate period, treating it in such a way that only the pre mediveal society constitutes of Indian heritage and everything after that is “un-Indian”

• A Stark binary between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the medieval era, has been maintained . Where previously efforts at only drawing similarities between the two had been made in order to promote cultural integrity and harmonious coexistence, the current progressions point out to a very different direction.

HISTORICIZATION OF MYTH
• What we see here is the age old tactic of the Sangh of historicizing Myth , be it regarding the concussion created over Ram Mandir or the syllabus for the History textbooks
• A highly speculative and Vague history of the Indo-Saraswati civilisation , traces of which can only found in the ancient Hindu texts like the Rig Veda and has been materialized by the historians as a “mental construct of the Vedic Aryans” to assert their otherness and exclusivity more than a real historical event, is a recent addition to the curriculum.

DOWNPLAYING DALIT HISTORY

The creation of a glorious Hindu past comes at the cost of downplaying the crucial moments of the Dalit rebellions and movements which had contributed significantly to the creation of the National movement of Independence.

By and large the new syllabus has been used to carve a communal understanding of the national history, keeping in view the larger aim of the Sangh and using history books as a tool to appropriate contemporary politics in a way in which faith at all times overweights facts. The recent mutations should not just be seen as an assault on the disciplines of History and Humanities of higher education but also as an attack on the progressive intelligentsia of the country where works of stalwarts historians like RS Sharma and Irfan Habib have been replaced by lesser known historians like RC Majumdar who’s works are inflicted with a communal view of history.

The academic syllabi of Universities plays a dramatic role in nation building and communalised education only helps BJP’s agenda of a corporate Hindu Rashtra!

Rage against distortions of secular history! Reject corporate Hindu Rashtra!

#SmashFascism