People's Democracy

THE mischievous intent of the NCERT school syllabus released on January 21, 2002, is evident even on a cursory reading of the document. The detailed analysis of the syllabus will reveal not only the historical illiteracy of its framers, but also demonstrate the role of the saffron ideology at work in the framing of this document. Since the courses in history have been a special target of the Sangh Parivar, which has tried to propagate myth as history, and prejudice as fact, we give below some of the more outstanding bloomers in this field.

Glaring errors are seen even in the placing of the chronological order. While ancient India is glorified, contempt is reserved for medieval India, a major portion of which is quite erroneously clubbed under the heading, The Rise of Ghaznavis. The early history of Delhi when buildings like Qutab Minar were built, has been deliberately clubbed with invaders like Mohammed of Ghazni who plundered India. This is clearly motivated by the desire to depict the various phases of Muslim rule as Ghaznavite. While 15 units have been devoted to the study of ancient India, medieval India is concluded in a mere three units.

In the ancient India section, the hobby horse of the Sangh Parivar, i.e., the efforts to establish the unity of the Harrapan and the vedic periods, is surreptiously introduced. The Harappan script, which has not yet been deciphered, finds a mention to give credence to the psedo-scientific efforts of the Sangh Parivar historians.

In the class VI syllabus, the Konark and Lingaraj temples, and the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram, that go back to the 11^th to 13^th centuries AD, have been described under "Ancient India" that was over by the 7^th century. For class XI, ‘Rise of the Cholas’ that was over by the early 13th century AD, comes much after "Life under the Delhi Sultanate" that relates to the 15^th century AD.

Dalits and tribals will be rightly peeved at the syllabi because of the lack of any critical look at the caste system. If terrorism and insurgency need to be studied then why not fundamentalism of the kind that the Sangh Parivar is propagating to disrupt the Indian society and its democratic ethos?