10-28-2005, 09:34 AM
Pioneer.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Jaundiced history </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
In an ideal situation, the state should not get involved with the writing of textbooks, especially those dealing with history. But the situation that prevails in India is far from ideal - although we claim to be an open, democratic society, the state continues to play a domineering role in deciding which child should read what about whom.
The control exercised by Government over the drafting of school syllabus and the writing of textbooks is a leftover of the era when <b>India blindly aped the manner in which Stalin and his successors sought to shape Soviet society to fit their twisted worldview and implement their venomous agenda</b>. The Soviet empire no longer exists, but its admirers in New Delhi struggle on with their enterprise to taint young minds and prejudice children against their own heritage and history.
Ironically, this evil enterprise has survived the change of political guard in the corridors of power. If the Congress is guilty of being the original sinner, the BJP also stands charged with not taking decisive action to put an end to the loathsome state patronage that enables charlatans to masquerade as know-all historians.
Hopefully, the writing of history to suit the insidious agenda of 'historians' and their political masters will no longer remain an indisputable right of the regime of the day, provided the Delhi High Court takes a PIL challenging the contents of school history textbooks to its logical conclusion. After the BJP-led NDA Government's anaemic attempt to cleanse school-level history of its obvious flaws and motivated interpretations, the Congress-led UPA has struck back with renewed vengeance.
Leftist historians who came to dominate academia because of their 'secular' credentials are back in business with the blessings of Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh whose perverted sense of nation and nationalism merits nothing more than pity and contempt.
Hence the absurdity of introducing textbooks that claim <b>Brahmins slaughtered cows and ate beef, and that Jats were plunderers</b>. Ram Sharan Sharma and Romila Thapar, authors of the two books whose objectionable contents have been questioned in court, have perfected the art of sanitising India's history of uncomfortable facts about the horrors inflicted by invaders from the North and West.
<b>And while heaping praise on those who conquered Hindu India with the help of the sword, they have skilfully injected factoids that are open to various interpretations.</b> By using school textbooks to preach their version of history, sanctified by the state, <b>they and their ilk strive to achieve the twin purpose of belittling Hindus and Hinduism as well as burdening children with a guilt complex that they will carry for the rest of their lives.</b>
A minuscule section of those who study history in school pick up this subject in college or university. Hence, they never get to contest the misinformation that is force-fed to them in their formative years. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Rather than being taught how to nourish the culture and civilisation which they have inherited, they are encouraged to hate and disown their own past and grow up into deracinated Indians, a scheme that fits perfectly into the Marxist gameplan and the Congress's despicable politics. </span>
This is not to suggest the straitjacketing of history and limiting the scope of interpretation. Those who study history at the graduate or post-graduate level can deal with the complexities of historiography. Children should be exempt from the excesses of our historians - they have the right to look at the world through kaleidoscopes.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Jaundiced history </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
In an ideal situation, the state should not get involved with the writing of textbooks, especially those dealing with history. But the situation that prevails in India is far from ideal - although we claim to be an open, democratic society, the state continues to play a domineering role in deciding which child should read what about whom.
The control exercised by Government over the drafting of school syllabus and the writing of textbooks is a leftover of the era when <b>India blindly aped the manner in which Stalin and his successors sought to shape Soviet society to fit their twisted worldview and implement their venomous agenda</b>. The Soviet empire no longer exists, but its admirers in New Delhi struggle on with their enterprise to taint young minds and prejudice children against their own heritage and history.
Ironically, this evil enterprise has survived the change of political guard in the corridors of power. If the Congress is guilty of being the original sinner, the BJP also stands charged with not taking decisive action to put an end to the loathsome state patronage that enables charlatans to masquerade as know-all historians.
Hopefully, the writing of history to suit the insidious agenda of 'historians' and their political masters will no longer remain an indisputable right of the regime of the day, provided the Delhi High Court takes a PIL challenging the contents of school history textbooks to its logical conclusion. After the BJP-led NDA Government's anaemic attempt to cleanse school-level history of its obvious flaws and motivated interpretations, the Congress-led UPA has struck back with renewed vengeance.
Leftist historians who came to dominate academia because of their 'secular' credentials are back in business with the blessings of Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh whose perverted sense of nation and nationalism merits nothing more than pity and contempt.
Hence the absurdity of introducing textbooks that claim <b>Brahmins slaughtered cows and ate beef, and that Jats were plunderers</b>. Ram Sharan Sharma and Romila Thapar, authors of the two books whose objectionable contents have been questioned in court, have perfected the art of sanitising India's history of uncomfortable facts about the horrors inflicted by invaders from the North and West.
<b>And while heaping praise on those who conquered Hindu India with the help of the sword, they have skilfully injected factoids that are open to various interpretations.</b> By using school textbooks to preach their version of history, sanctified by the state, <b>they and their ilk strive to achieve the twin purpose of belittling Hindus and Hinduism as well as burdening children with a guilt complex that they will carry for the rest of their lives.</b>
A minuscule section of those who study history in school pick up this subject in college or university. Hence, they never get to contest the misinformation that is force-fed to them in their formative years. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Rather than being taught how to nourish the culture and civilisation which they have inherited, they are encouraged to hate and disown their own past and grow up into deracinated Indians, a scheme that fits perfectly into the Marxist gameplan and the Congress's despicable politics. </span>
This is not to suggest the straitjacketing of history and limiting the scope of interpretation. Those who study history at the graduate or post-graduate level can deal with the complexities of historiography. Children should be exempt from the excesses of our historians - they have the right to look at the world through kaleidoscopes.
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