A few months back, Mamta Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal put a University professor behind bars simply because he had sent someone a cartoon of honourable Chief Minster through an e-mail. Later, a class 11th Political Science textbook published by N.C.E.R.T. was prohibited from teaching as a consequence of the controversy that emanated from a cartoon of Nehru and Ambedkar published in the said textbook. On May 11, BSP supremo, Mayawati had objected to Ambedkar’s cartoon in the Parliament. Following this, all electoral and non-electoral Ambedkarite organisations as well as organisations engaged in politics of Dalit identity seized upon this issue. According to them, any cartoon on Ambedkar, the Messiah of Dalit liberation, is an affront to the dalit identity! Infact, turning any critical view on Ambedkar’s personality, thoughts, philosophy, economics or organisation into an issue of dalit identity is not something new. The entire Parliament including the Government as well as the Opposition, together in unison created much hue and cry on this issue. One was at one’s wits’ ends as one failed to figure out as to against whom all these venerable ladies and gentlemen were raising their voices! Anyhow, on 14 May, this textbook, which had been prepared under the direction of educationist Suhas Palshikar and sociologist Yogendra Yadav, was removed from school curriculum. Both Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar tendered their resignation. This was followed by an attack by Republican Panthers, a non-electoral organisation claiming to represent Dalit interests, on Palshikar. In fact, similar to various types of religious fundamentalisms, an Ambedkarite fundamentalism, too has taken root, which is as much intolerant to any kind of criticism, opposition or comment as is Sangh backed Hindutva or Talibanist Islamic fundamentalism. However this point demands a separate discussion and here we intend to elucidate certain other issues.
Following this, the government appointed a committee of “experts” to review all textbooks. The said committee, in the first week of July put forth its recommendations. As per these recommendations all such material including cartoons, pictures, articles etc. would be removed from school textbooks which incorporate any critical comment or viewpoint against the government, political leaders, bureaucracy or system. If the recommendations of this committee are brought to effect, which seems most likely to happen, then whatever of critical vision children used to derive from their school curriculum, even that won’t be accessible to them now. In 2005 during the first term of United Progressive Alliance government, a new ‘National framework for Curriculum’ was drafted, which rescinded the National Framework for Curriculum’ (also known as ‘Birla-Ambani report’) drafted by BJP-led NDA government in 2000. This was a positive measure since the character of framework prepared during the term of NDA government was extremely anti-poor, anti-dalit and anti-women. The new framework was prepared under the guidance of various renowned educationists, sociologists and historians. The new framework stressed upon encouraging the aspect of criticality in education. The N.C.E.R.T. prepared the new textbooks under this new framework. These textbooks were full of high sounding catchphrases of bourgeois reformism, rationality of bourgeois enlightenment and identity politics. However, this much must be acknowledged that like the earlier textbook, these were not completely uncritical. These even talked critically about the ruling class, system as well as its various institutions. Various reformists and social democratic intellectuals are copiously lamenting the withdrawal of these textbooks as if these had been revolutionary and radical textbooks, however, the truth is that under normal national and international conditions, these textbooks established the hegemony of the system more effectively. These textbooks used to construct such kind of criticality in the minds of children through which they can believe that undoubtedly there are limitations., weaknesses in the bourgeois liberal democracy and capitalist system, however, there can’t be another better system than it; what we must aspire for is to make this system more and more accountable, participatory and economically as well as socially more just. The various claims of criticality notwithstanding, these textbooks were simply status-quoist and not opposed to the status-quo. This is the most what we could have expected from people like Prof. Yashpal, Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar etc. The bourgeois enlightenment, freedon, equality, fraternity and justice cannot be employed without using the adjective ‘bourgeois’. The bourgeois enlightenment became the enlightenment of rational-choice making competitive bourgeois individual; bourgeois freedom became freedom to earn profit and that of property; bourgeois equality meant nothing more than that formal equality in front of bourgeois law; and bourgeois fraternity was reduced to the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie. However in the textbooks these reformist and social democratic educationists and sociologists present it as the enlightenment, equality, freedom, fraternity and justice for all people. To them bourgeois equality, freedom and fraternity and justice is natural equality, freedom, fraternity and justice. The capitalist system stands on this very deception. However, as a matter of fact all this talk of equality, freedom, fraternity and justice prove shallow because in reality capitalist society breeds profiteering, greed, avarice, crime and corruption. Any system driven by the logic of private property and profit can spontaneously beget only these things.
The bourgeois education system reacts/responds to this anomaly in two ways. The first kind of reaction/response is that of denying the truth or its shameless refutation. The earlier Indian education system resorted to this. For instance, in Economics it used to taught that there are three types of economies- capitalist, socialist and mixed; after this we were told that the capitalist economy has such-and-such drawbacks and such and such advantages, the socialist economy has such and such drawbacks and such and such advantages; and in the end, we were told about the mixed economy in which there are advantages of both capitalist economy and socialist system and this type of economy is sans any flaws, because it had been adopted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru! This was an example of the earlier education system which simply denied the realities of economy, politics and society. Later the ruling class realized that an education system which does not say anything negative about the entire system and enumerates only its positives, cannot be much effective. The reason being that as the student grows up, the contents of the textbooks turn out to be matter of ridicule for him/her because he/she knows from his/her experience that the stuff written in the textbooks is absolutely false. He/she remembers it till the point of examination and forgets everything afterwards. Therefore a few changes were carried out in the education system. The objective of these changes was to reveal certain truths regarding the system. In the name of “critical” pedagogy, the new education system informed us that the system was not flawless or beyond faults and failings. There are many troubles with this system. We were told about the caste system, inequality, poverty, unemployment etc. However, we were not told that these problems are spontaneous and natural outcome of the present capitalist system; neither were we told that except for these things, this system cannot offer anything else to the people. These problems are mentioned as an aberration of the normative prototype of liberal capitalist democracy. In this new education system, we are told that this normative prototype of liberal bourgeois democracy can be achieved, which is pure, superior, natural and ideal. Only this is the desired system; only this is required. All other systems (in fact what they mean is simply Socialism) have proved to be authoritarian and anti-democracy. Therefore, the only alternative we are left with is to better this impure/imperfect version of normative prototype of liberal bourgeois democracy. As a matter of fact, this is the same conclusion as was drawn by Francis Fukoyama. Only the manner of saying it differs.
The textbooks which have been recently withdrawn from the curriculum, in fact, gave this very message to the students. These do not conceal the flaws and weaknesses of the current system. These do inform us that today the country faces problems such as poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, hunger, caste-based as well as gender based oppression etc. etc. However its reason is that we have a version of normative prototype present amidst us which is full of impurities and imperfections. If the liberal bourgeois democracy gets implemented in a correct and accurate manner, then this is best possible system. Besides, implicitly, this message too is there that despite its various impurities and imperfections, only this is the most desirable system because any other system would be undemocratic, dictatorial and oppressive. These textbooks seem to tell us that ‘look this system gives you space to register your protest!’, therefore, even after being subjected to oppression and exploitation you can at least say that you were exploited and oppressed; to the extent that this system allows you to indulge in a bit of slogan-mongering at places like Jantar Mantar against this exploitation and oppression! (It is altogether a different matter that as soon as this resistance acquires the form of a powerful anti-system movement, all of a sudden you are declared a traitor and enemy of the state and subsequently you are put behind the bars under “democratic” laws in their surrealist form such as U.A.P.A., POTA, TADA, MCOCA etc.!) Anyhow, to put it in a nutshell, these textbooks put forth the view that regardless of all its flaws, the liberal bourgeois democracy is the best system which humanity can hope for today, though it is true that this system has many aberrations, impurities and imperfections etc. Therefore, what should a student do? He/she should become a better citizen; should believe in the constitution; should keep his/her faith in the law and order prevailing in the country; through he/she should fight for justice, however, this struggle must not take the form of rebellion! He/she should carry out this struggle while staying well within the bounds of courts, rules and regulations! Because today who talk of going beyond the ambit of this system will end up establishing a dictatorial system; or else they have gone astray, are anarchists etc.! A student must evolve as a “responsible” citizen and must strive to make this system more and more accountable, participatory and economically as well as socially just. In fact, the politics of these textbooks, despite all of their “criticality” is a more hegemonic ,reformist, “welfarist”, at times social-democratic, identity based politics. It is drenched in the sugary syrup of catchphrases of participatory democracy, accountable government and socio-economic justice of the present day “humanist” imperialist agencies, which today are being put to tremendous use by the NGO’s thriving on the crumbs of these same agencies.
Now the question rises that if the present textbook were providing an instrument of enforcing the hegemony of bourgeois capitalism more effectively in the field of education system and were better than the less hegemonic and more dominating textbook of earlier days, then why, at all, did the government withdraw them from the curriculum?
It is essential to grasp a few things in order to understand its reason. First of all, the current phase is extremely critical for capitalism. The end of the dreadful crisis in which world capitalism has been embroiled since 2006 seems to be nowhere in sight. The crisis that started off as the Sub Prime crisis in U.S. in 2006 soon took the financial system across the globe in its grip. In the era of unprecedented domination of finance capital, it did not take long for the crisis that originated in the financial world to turn into a crisis of real economy. As 2008 approached, the centre of gravity of this crisis, shifting eastwards, had reached Europe. This crisis still continues to be in Europe in form of the Sovereign Debt crisis. And now there are clear indications that this crisis has advanced towards the so-called ‘emerging economies’. The Indian economy has been witnessing a continuous downturn since past one year. Recently, the industrial growth rate touched an unprecedented low. Compared to the Western advanced capitalist countries, it would prove really difficult for the developing countries, already reeling under the pressure of inflation, rising unemployment rate, poverty and homelessness, to bear the burden of the economic slump. If the depression arrives in these countries with its full force, then the political and social consequences of this economics crisis can be dangerous for the ruling classes.
In such a scenario, the ruling class of these countries is terror stricken. It is hell-bent upon crushing all kind of resistance, opposition and dissent. It is often said that a terrified soul fancies even a rope as snake. The psychology of Indian ruling class, too, can be termed as much the same. The current textbook and cartoon controversy as well the subsequent recommendation of the government-appointed textbook review committee that all such textbooks, cartoons etc. must be banned which either criticize or comment on the political class, constitution, government, police-army or bureaucracy, demonstrates that at present every approaching sound appears alarming to the Indian ruling class. It is true that the textbooks which have been withdrawn would have functioned more effectively in enforcing the entire hegemonic mechanism of the bourgeois system in the field of education. However, during the phase of economic and political crises, the bourgeoisie and the hegemonic instruments of its system, too totter. In a way, this fear of the Indian ruling classes that the sarcasm or criticism regarding the ruling class and its system in the textbooks can foment resistance is not totally unfounded too. As a matter of fact, today the people in this country are in a state of disillusionment towards entire capitalist system, bourgeois parties and the bourgeoisie. It is filled with tremendous anger and resentment against the ruling class. In the last few years, owing to the incidents of repression, oppression, exploitation, corruption, the ruling class as well as the entire system have been thoroughly exposed. The working class discontent, too, bursts forth now and them. Many significant workers’ movement have occurred across the country during the past 10 years. The resentment of the toiling classes is erupting against the state power and its symbols even at slight instances. In such a scenario, it’s only natural that such fear thrives in the hearts of the representatives of debauched, corrupt and plundering bourgeoisie in power.
The present political and economic crisis is endlessly constricting that space of the capitalist system where it can co-opt any resistance and opposition through its hegemonic mechanisms. In the textbook controversy, what is more pertinent than censuring the earlier textbooks and glorifying the recently withdrawn ones is to realize the fact that even those textbooks which had been removed were in no way pro-people, revolutionary, radical and egalitarian textbooks. Rather, these were competent in inculcating the hegemony of bourgeoisie in children’s psyche with more cunningness. These textbooks have not been withdrawn as though these were going to imbue the minds of children with revolutionary criticality, as is being pointed out by various reformist , social democratic and radical bourgeois intellectuals in sundry journals and magazines. They have been removed because in the current phase of political and economic crisis, it was not possible for the bourgeoisie to even bear the ‘expenses’ of the kind of hegemonic instruments these textbooks were providing. In the present phase of the crisis, the hegemonic structure of the entire capitalist system is cracking up, its hegemonic mechanisms are fast becoming dysfunctional and the system is increasingly moving towards applying the mechanisms of dominance from those of hegemony. In history, this happens only during those phases, when a system is critically crisis-ridden. Today, capitalism is critically crisis-stricken. Only its death can rid it of all its diseases. The more this system loses its ability to rule through consent and co-opt resistance and dissent, the more its repressive character will be denuded. This process is not going to reach fruition in the near future and neither any country-wide revolutionary movement capable of bringing about a radical transformation is going to be built in the near future against the increasingly repressive character of the system. However, even this is true, as the orientation of the current changes clearly indicates , that the capitalist system is lying on its death-bed. It survives not because of its internal strength but rather due to the force of inertia; it seems powerful because today the peoples’ forces are on bended knees.
-Abhinav Sinha
(July, 2012)
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