Ever since the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-supported government of Narendra Modi has come to power, the Indian Left has been worried sick about a ‘Right’ turn of education, while the Indian Right claims that the current curriculum is Left leaning.
Evidently, the Left wants status quo while the Right demands a course correction.
This debate has generated many assumptions. The most facile is about the nature of education in India which most, especially the Right – perhaps based on a few weak lessons on interfaith harmony in school textbooks, think is ‘secular’.
Having spent 19 years of my life in the system - from LKG (Lower Kindergarten) to a Master’s Degree (all of it in the state of Gujarat), I believe just the opposite – that education in India emanates from and caters to the Right.
The first problem is of perspective. Social Media trolls and generally well-meaning Indians supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi blindly, look at Indian politics in the binary – the Congress is evil and the BJP is the knight in shining armour out to save the damsel in distress Bharat Mata. They believe that Indian education is bad simply because it was shaped and run by the ‘pseudo-secular’ Congress.
That, of course, is another assumption – that the Indian National Congress is secular and hence has shaped a secular education. A slight peek into the history and functioning of the Congress Party will show us that a majority of communal riots since independence have had the active blessing and often participation of Congress members, even as the party made a grand show of secularism.
The second problem is that we do not realise that secularism is like pregnancy. You are either secular or you are not. You cannot be a ‘little’ secular or even selectively secular.
Most Indians - and this cuts across religious lines, are inherently communalist, sectarian and casteist. Few have ever managed to get over their narrow sectarian mindsets to become truly non-partisan and inclusive. I am still trying.
src:sify.com