Where is the present educational system of our country leading us to? Is it leading us towards a rational society or into the clutches of illogical conclusions and superstition?
Some recent developments in the sector of education have made us to question ourselves with some very crucial and critical points. The neo-liberal attack on this system had been started long ago from the 1990s, when we have witnessed the large scale mushrooming of private educational institutions, the number of private colleges have increased manifold over the years, the increase being massive in the technical and medical sector. Still the expenditure on education from the central governed remains at a meager 3.8 percent, with the central government spending only 0.67 percent of it, leaving the rest to be spent by the respective state governments. And we all have experienced how that is being carried out.
Now, along with this attack that we have been already been going through, the students have been subjected to another fascist attack, this time from a specific school of thought, the Hindutwa school of thought. Already in our country we are engrossed by so many illogical and superstitious beliefs, these beliefs such as the Moon being a heavenly body and the Sun being a God, automatically they are injected into us since the beginning, in spite of the textbooks repeatedly stressing on the scientific interpretation of such bodies and their actions like the eclipses, their revolutions, etc.. Adding to this, the government has been carrying out a massive anti-student propaganda by trying to saffronise the education system in our country.
Steps such as the centre’s directive to the IITs to establish separate canteens for the vegetarian students, the reason being that non-veg food enhances us “tamsic” thoughts and lead to several anti-social and unmoral activities. It is no debate that this is a direct attack on the very food habits of a vast section of the population. Such steps can easily be linked to the government’s ultimate agenda, alienation of the minorities from the mainstream of the country and promoting uncomplicated Brahminical Hinduism. The predecessor of the present government even opposed Urdu being an official language of the country, terming it as a foreign language which is hardly the case.
The memories are still fresh when a CBSE textbook in 2012 suggested students should get on a vegetarian diet purely on an unscientific basis. Although the book was withdrawn, but the seeds have germinated slowly over the years. The proposers of such thoughts bring up points such as the Japanese do not consume meat, hence they live longer, ignoring the fact that the main food of the Japanese people is fish, now if they do not consider fish as meat then their ability to judge food habits is highly doubtful.
Such attacks have even reached the lower strata of education, where it’s comparatively easy to polarize the masses. In a certain Gujarat textbook, “Tejomoy Bharat”, it has been proposed that TV, Surrogacy and Plastic surgery have existed in India since the Vedic age. Even they have gone up to level of stating that an ancient sage had even performed a nuclear test in the country. It is highly debatable whether the steps have at all been taken by someone with knowledge of history and diplomacy, because if the person would have been he would have at least thought of the distinction between mythology and science. Such assertions are made in the textbooks without any historical and geographical proofs.
The culmination of mythology and science in one single bracket in such a manner will only hamper the country’s development and nothing else. How do you think the outside world will react when they hear of such absurd and unscientific claims made by our country or is the government trying to contain the Indian people in their own country only? Although the part about the containment in their own country is questionable too, as the government has done nothing about the huge outsourcing taken on in the trade sectors. In short, the questions are more, and the answers are very less.
The saffronisation of education has its foothold in the propagation of a distorted view of history. They have repeatedly used national symbols like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh for petty political reasons. They campaign with the posters of Bhagat Singh, but ban his books and writings, just because he dreamt of separate system and was an atheist. To them, Gandhi is someone whose only basic contribution to the country is cleanliness, while on the other hand; national disgraces like Naturam Godse are worshipped. It is only a few days back that some of their supporters have demanded a temple to be constructed in the memory of Nathuram Godse. By doing so, they have paralyzed the youth, from trying to learn about the ideals of such great personalities of our country; such is the saffronisation been going on around us.
They made a major mistake when they proposed that the German was to be replaced with Sanskrit in the CBSE schools. The proposal was having many drawbacks; mainly it came at a wrong time, the middle of the term. And, also, the school board in our country basically follows a three language system; this proposal gave away that too. The teaching of Sanskrit is not questioned in this regard, but their insistence to do away with the German language is, such steps have received consistent support from their preachers who preach against the west in every way possible. It is true that we do not have to follow the west in every respect but we do need to acquire better things in their culture. The era that we are living in is that of globalization and we all know the value of learning a foreign language in these times, the government cannot and should not deny us of this opportunity.
The recent debate over the attempted exclusion of the words “socialist” and “secular” in the preamble by the central government has caused a huge uproar in the country among the progressive students and the masses. Comments such as “chowmein causes rape” are not helping at all. The Centre’s steps to introduce astrology and Vedic science in the UGC are also under question. The people trying to saffronise the education in our country try to construct the past out of their present needs. This has to be stopped otherwise the time is not very distant, when India would be facing a dearth of rational thinkers.
