By H. Srikanth
In recent years, we have come across several articles eulogizing the merits of the NEP, 2020. Thanks to them, most people associated with education in one form or the other have become familiar with terms and expressions like internationalization of education system, collaboration with foreign universities and institutes, the world academic ranking, multi-disciplinary education, multiple exit and entry options, digital platforms, online education, vocationalization of the school and college curriculum, etc. Given the sorrow state of education, many see in the NEP, 2020 a panacea for ills affecting the education sector in the country.
Radical restructuring of education in the country is possible only when the government increases the budget for education, appoints qualified teachers and provides the basic facilities for running the educational institutions. The success of online education through e-platforms requires a bridging of the digital gap and providing internet services to the remote and far-flung areas. Increased corporate investments in education and growth in the number of corporate schools, colleges and universities are of no use to the students coming from poor and middle-class backgrounds. It is only by strengthening of the public universities and by providing financial support to the students coming from marginalized sections it becomes possible to increase the access. Proposals like entry and exit, four-year degree, multi-disciplinary curriculum, cafeteria approach, etc., become meaningless unless the universities and colleges have adequate infrastructure and human resources. Vocationalization of the curriculum serves no purpose until and unless the government set rights the economy and increases the job opportunities. Unfortunately, we don’t see the government taking the right steps to address these vital issues. In the absence of required preconditions, the declared objectives of providing quality education and increasing its reach remains a mirage. The NEP then only becomes a conduit for privatization and commercialization of education in the country.
Apart from these concerns, the critics have also pointed out another development which will have serious implications for the future of education in the country. Besides advocating the internalization of the Indian education system, the NEP also seeks to impart Indian values and traditions through education. But what does one mean by Indian values and tradition? India is a civilization with thousands of years of cultural and social history. The people belonging to different religions, races, languages and cultures inhabit the country. India has accommodated streams of invaders, migrants, refugees and travelers. It is difficult to say who in India is a native and a foreigner. Interactions between these diverse groups and communities have enriched Indian history and heritage. Every community that settled in India has contributed its bit to enrich the Indian civilization. India cannot be identified with any one religion, language, or culture.
While being proud of India’s composite heritage, one should not ignore the fact that India was never a nation in a political sense. Till the British colonized the subcontinent and brought it under single political and administrative control, the India was ruled by different dynasties at different points of time in history, and their territories changed from time to time, depending on who the ruler then was. There was never a dynasty or Empire that ruled all the territories that we have inherited as India from the British colonizers. Being aware of the cultural and religious diversity, Indian nationalist leaders and social reformers rejected the idea of making India a theocratic state. In order to keep India united and prevent another Partition, the national leaders gave shape to a Constitution that acknowledged India as a Union of States and guaranteed religious, cultural and civil rights to all its citizens. In conformity with the constitutional values, the Kothari Commission recommended the need for imparting and promoting secular and scientific temperament through education. Institutions like UGC, NCERT and CBSE gave shape to curriculum and syllabus, emphasizing the composite history and included lessons promoting democracy, secularism, rational and scientific thinking. Does the NEP 2020 continue to uphold these democratic and secular traditions?
A careful look shows that the NEP document consciously avoids any reference to the term secularism. It appears, to the proponents of the NEP, Indian values basically mean the Hindu values, as conceived by the Hindutva ideologues wedded to the idea of Hindu supremacy and Hindu Rashtra. They view Indian history, culture and heritage through the prism of Hindutva. Giving up all scientific methods of studying and writing history, they talk of rewriting history based on majoritarian faith and beliefs. Several ‘WhatsApp historians’ sprang up from among them, making exaggerated claims that ancient Hindu India knew everything that the modern science has discovered / invented. In their attempts to rationalize the Aryans as the natives of Indian and the Harappa and Mohenjo-daro civilization as Hindu civilization, of late, they started propagating the idea of mythical Saraswathi civilization. Blurring the difference between history and mythology, they have been making efforts to project mythological figures as historical personalities. Forums like All India History Congress were used to promote such irrational ideas in the name of history. All great intellectuals and scientists that ancient India has produced are viewed not as individuals, but as the representatives of the Hindu religion. The contributions of the Charvaka and the teachings of Buddha, which upheld rationalist traditions in Indian philosophy, were consciously hidden. The enmity between the Hindu and the Muslim rulers is given undue emphasis, and the secular and syncretic traditions that were in vogue in political and cultural domains are deliberately overlooked. Attempts are made to paint all Muslim rulers as invaders and as anti-Hindu fanatics. The challenges that the lower castes in ancient and medieval India had posed to the Brahmanical Hinduism are concealed to construct the myth of a unified and homogenous Hinduism. In the name of unearthing the unsung heroes of India’s freedom struggle, they belittle the contributions of reformist and secular leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru. Conscious efforts are on to present and popularize the ideas of some leaders and organizations which played an insignificant role during the freedom struggle.
In pursuit of their objectives, most committees created to execute the NEP, including the National Curriculum Committee, are filled mostly with persons close to RSS ideology. Taking the plea of the need for rationalization of textbooks to remove irrelevant and outdated material, the lessons reflecting the contributions of the Muslim rulers to Indian heritage are removed or trimmed. Even the lessons titled, ‘Key Elements of Democratic Government’, ‘Democracy and Diversity’, ‘Challenges to Democracy’, ‘Challenges of Cultural diversity’, ‘Rise of Popular Movement’, etc., are dropped from the CBSE curriculum. Discussions and references to caste, gender, and religious discrimination are omitted. Karnataka government, which is viewed as the champion of the NEP, went a step further. The Text Book Revision Committee of Karnataka recommended removal of lessons on / writings by revolutionary leaders, social reformers and activists like Bhagat Singh, Savitrabha Phule, Narayana Guru, Sufi saints, Kanakadasu, Purandaradasu, Basaveshwara, Sara Abubaker, U.R. Ananthamurthy. The state government’s crude efforts to saffronize the curriculum met with popular resistance. Under pressure from the intellectuals and the civil society, Karnataka government had to retract many of the changes proposed by the Committee. In view of the popular opposition to saffronization, the central government is trading a cautious path. The recent directions to all central universities to organize ‘discussions’ on a non-academic book titled, ‘Modi@22’ show that the institutions of higher educational institutions are not above the saffronization experiment.
Critics therefore point out that NEP 2020 and saffronization are not two unconnected exercises. Saffronization is one of the undeclared objectives of the NEP. The persons who are talking about multi-disciplinary curriculum, online digital platforms, vocationalization of education, etc., are also the ones advocating saffronization in the name of preserving and promoting Indian values. Saffronization, if it succeeds, sounds a death knell to secular foundations; promotes dogmatic and unscientific thinking; speeds up the transformation of India into a majoritarian state and threatens our social harmony. It is unfortunate that most intellectuals lending support to NEP, 2020, hardly reflect on the serious implications of saffronization of education for India’s democratic and secular fabric.