Textbooks are principle instructional materials. A textbook is often defined as an instrument of instruction that facilitates the teaching learning process. Textbooks for different subjects are written on the basis of a prescribed syllabus in which the major ideals of the subject matter are selected and summarized judiciously. They are organized logically according to the mental makeup, mental age and psychological requirements of the students so as to facilitate teaching. Hence text books are often called the teacher in print.
Textbooks are important because they give us a flavour of our history, culture, geography, society and its values and help us form healthy and liberal ideologies which we carry into college. In many nations debates over the content and format of school textbooks are sites of considerable educational and political conflict. A study of the national education systems across the globe suggest that the manufacture of textbook content is the result of competition between powerful groups who see it as being central in the creation of collective national memory designed to meet specific cultural, economic, ideological and social imperatives.
In India today, school textbooks are sought to be written and based on the cultural, ideological and political power of dominant groups with the intention of enforcing and reinforcing cultural homogeneity through the promotion of shared attitudes and the construction of shared historical memories. In country as diverse as India with many histories and cultures; each of them unique, such construction of history can be problematic. Hence even the choice of text books is not innocent of politics as the attempt often is to manufacture and control popular memory. However, what is interesting about the recent attempt to overhaul the MBOSE textbooks is that the content does not seem to matter but the publishers have become the dominant players when they are but merchants plying a trade. To reduce an important process such as the selection of text books simply to a short-listing of publishers suggests that a sinister game is at play. It is important for civil society to blow the whistle now!