By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
While the Communist parties on national level are opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal with one of its leaders saying that the deal is against Muslims, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala is alleged to be turning education in the state reddish with wrongly presenting Muslims’ image and traditions in the school textbook.
Kerala has recently seen a controversy over textbook content snowballing into a big political issue.
Twocircles.net tried to look into this contentious issue to see what exactly the matter is and what is at stake when it comes to the interests of the Indian Muslims. Why are some Muslim organizations opposing it? Is there anything “anti-Islamic” in the changes brought out in the curriculum by the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the state?
Background
This year as a part of its policy of educational reform, the LDF government constituted the Kerala Curriculum Framework (KCF) on the pattern of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
KCF brought out the revised textbooks of Std. I, III, V and VII, a move which was immediately greeted with allegation that the LDF government is trying to propagate its ideology through the revised syllabi.
The controversy is mainly over the textbook of the Social Sciences of Std. VII. The second chapter of this book which is titled “An earth with humanity” is said to be highly controversial.
Epicenter of controversy
The controversial chapter has various small sections. The section titled “Jeevan Who has No Religion” describes that a family, which includes a father, a mother, and a small boy, comes to a headmaster for the purpose of admission of the boy. The Head Master at the time of filling up of the admission form asks the boy: “what is your name?” The boy answers “Jeevan.” Then the Head Master asks the boy his father’s name. The boy replies “Anwar Rasheed.” “What is your mother’s name?” “Lakshmi Devi” the boy replies.
Then the Head Master asks the parents of the boy: “which is the religion you want to enter against the boy in the register?” The parents reply, “Nothing, you may write no religion.” Then the Head Master asks the parents, “Supposing the child feels the need for a religion when he grows up?” The parents reply: “let him choose when he wants to.”
Muslims’ view
The question that the Muslim organizations are asking is: Why this absurd conversation when the society of Kerala or, for that matter, that of India, is a religious one? The incident described in the textbook is imaginary, they argue.
Then what is the purpose of narrating an imaginary incident in the textbook, except to reinforce the idea in the minds of children that religion is bad and that a non-religious community is an ideal and desired one. They point out that this and other examples show that this is nothing but promoting Leftist ideas through the state machinery. And they consider this as contrary to the constitutional spirit, because India is a secular state. And according to the constitution the ideology of the state must be neutrality, they say.
Talking to TwoCircles.net Sajid, media cell in-charge of Kerala Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH), says: “If we exclude the second chapter then the overall approach of this textbook is highly progressive according to our organization because they have many broad and newer concerns like that of untouchability, caste system, environmental crisis, lack of agriculture prominent among others.” But the problem is with the second chapter whose essence is that a non-religious community is an ideal and desired community, says Sajid.
The Chapter ends with the last part of the Will of first Prime Minister of India, Jawahar Lal Nehru. The part reads: “after my death no religious ritual should be observed.”
Why you take that portion of Nehru’s will, if at all you want to propagate, according to you, “secularism”, and why not his other writings on the subject.
Nehru has written many things about Indian Secularism. For instance he categorically pointed out that Indian secularism is not irreligiosity, but the spirit of Indian secularism lies in neutrality.
So the Muslim organizations in particular and common people in general allege that to bend the essence of the textbook towards Leftist ideology the authors of the textbook are following the principal of selective inclusion and selective omission which favors the Leftist ideology.
Other controversies
Then there is another section of the second chapter titled “land of Celebration” which describes the culture of Andaman and Nicobar Island.
This chapter says that the inter-religious marriage is very common among the people of the island, so much so that one can find the people of all the religions present in a family. And all the members of the family follow the customs and the festivals of each other’s religion collectively and happily.
According to the critics, the problem here is that first of all this is factually wrong. The rate of inter-religious marriage in the island is not different from that in other parts of India.
Another section in the chapter says that there have been various kinds of discrimination in past and there are also many kinds of discrimination being practiced in our society today.
So it exhorts the students first to understand the actual cause and the reason behind the discrimination and then overcome them.
The section refers to many movements against all sorts of discrimination prevailed in the state. One of them is Channar movement and asks the students: “Is there any discrimination still standing for the ladies concerning their dress in our part of the country over some belief?”
The Muslim organizations allege that the discrimination in dressing over some belief refers to the Parda system which Islam instructs its women believers to practice.
Ironically enough the Channar movement was a struggle for the rights of the women of the Channar caste to cover their breasts, something which they were not allowed to do by the upper castes of Kerala some hundred years back.
Government’s view and action
The LDF government and the education minister M. A. Baby are saying that the revised textbook is a part of the government’s effort to bring about the structural and content change in the education syllabi of the state. They say that they want to inculcate “critical thinking” in the children, which includes also questioning the existing and continuing traditions.
However, due to the strong agitations against the controversial parts of the revised textbook, the LDF government constituted an Expert Committee headed by the eminent leftist historian K.N. Panikkar.
The politics with the Committee is, Sajid pointed out, that out of the eighteen members of the committee around sixteen are from the leftist background.
Only O. Abdul Rahman, editor of “Madhyamam,” a JIH journal, and Fazal Ghafoor, president of Muslim Education Society, are from the non-leftist background.
That Expert Committee found out that certain portion of the Chapter two of the textbook of Social Sciences of Std. VII is controversial. On July 15, 2008 it submitted its report to the state Minister of Education, M. A. Baby. He referred the report to the Curriculum Committee which is a part of the KCF.
Again in the Curriculum Committee also, out of around 25 members only two representatives are from the Congress-led alliance United Democratic Front (UDF).
The Committee in the recent meeting in the chairmanship of M. A. Baby has decided to make certain amendments.
For instance, the title of the controversial section of the Chapter Two, ” Jeevan Who has No Religion” will be changed to “Independence of Belief”, the quotation from Nehru’s Will will be changed, and instead of “very common” the phrase used to describe the frequency of the inter-religious marriage in Andaman and Nikobar, now the phrase would be “it is not rare.”
This Committee has three months time in which it will be having three public meetings, and it has also the proposal to start a website on which the suggestion concerning this issue will be sought from public.
Response by Muslim organization
All Muslim organizations in the state formed a Muslim Coordination Committee (MCC) in June 2008 to protest against the introduction of the controversial textbooks.
The MCC includes Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and two factions of Jamate Ahle Hadis.
They met Chief Minister Achhutanandan, LDF leaders and education minister M. A. Baby, and conveyed their concerns. They demanded that the government must delete the Chapter Two from the book. The Chapter must be rewritten.
Earlier they were told by the LDF government and the LDF leaders that it is impossible to delete the chapter completely.
But recently M. A. Baby approached the MCC on 18th July requesting them to stop the protests and agitations until the final report of the Curriculum Committee.
To decide the future course of action the MCC met on 19th July and decided that it won’t go ahead with the demonstrations and agitations.
The problem with the MCC is that it is divided about the future course of action over the issue.
TwoCircles.net has learnt that the matter has been made complicated by the political interests of the Muslim League which has the leadership of the MCC. The state president of the Muslim league and former minister P. K. Kunjhalikutty is the chairman of the MCC. So his party is trying to enforce the agenda of the UDF alliance on the MCC.
Muslim League is part of the Congress-led UDF alliance which is trying to exploit the issue and reap maximum political dividends out of it. That is why the UDF has snowballed the textbook controversy into a big political issue. Muslim League is just trying to favor the policy of the Congress, and accordingly exploit the Muslim vote.
Talking to TwoCircles.net Kunjhalikutty said: “WE will go ahead with the demonstration and the agitations. The government’s response is not at all satisfactory. A dharna and a march will take place in a month.”
On the other hand, most of the Muslim organizations within the MCC have decided that they should not protest as the government has agreed to do amendments and corrections.