Don’t teach kids about riots, says new ICSSR chief

Do you think antiMuslim riots should be taught to class 6 or 7 students? Even in class 12, they shouldn’t be taught

NEW DELHI India’s school textbooks should drop lessons on Hindu-Muslim or caste riots as they turn students into activists instead of making them learners, the new chief of the country’s premier body promoting research on social science has said.

Braj Bihari Kumar, a selfproclaimed admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was named chairperson of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) this month, an appointment criticised by a section of scholars who questioned his academic credentials to lead the body.

“Class 6 textbook of social sciences mentions HinduMuslim riots, caste riots... They (the writers) want to create social activists rather than students or learners. Do you think anti-Muslim riots should be taught to class 6 or 7 students? Even in class 12, they shouldn’t be taught,” Kumar, 76, told HT in an exclusive interview.

“People who have written history and social sciences books had their own agenda,” he said. Kumar, a known critic of contemporary scholars in social sciences, said the textbooks only mention the hardships faced by BR Ambedkar as a Dalit.

“...But they should also inform students what positive steps Ambedkar himself took, which have an effect on the society. But they won’t,” he said, adding NCERT books were lacking on many counts and need a complete overhaul.

He said atrocities against Dalits are highlighted much more than similar incidents between the “so-called nonDalits”.“Is there a study? You are projecting one thing and not the other. We should have a total picture and study of conflict,” he said.

The BJP-led government at the Centre is facing criticism for allegedly failing to protect abuse of Dalits and other lower castes. The Opposition blames the ruling party for the recent caste clashes in Saharanpur in UP and earlier incidents such the assault of Dalit youth in Gujarat’s Una over suspicion of cow slaughter.

Kumar also rejected the “colonial myth” about higher-caste Hindus not allowing the lower castes to acquire education.

“Brahmins are the poorest aristocracy in the world and that is in their value system. You read Vedas, Mahabharat...the poorest lifestyle is the ideal lifestyle. A very less number of Brahmins were going to school...,” he said.

Describing Narendra Modi as the worst victim of intolerance, Kumar criticised the “other side called liberals, those who celebrate when poor people are killed by naxalites, those who want India to be divided and I am very clear that they are anti-nationals.”

He picked out JNU as a hub of “anti-national” activity and said if its students don’t mend their ways, society will force it upon them. “If there is a slogan of breaking India, we simply take it as a anti-national act and if a university produces only such kind of students, something was wrong in establishing that university,” he said in reference to a controversy over alleged anti-India sloganeering during an event in February last year.

Kumar also attacked historian Ramchandra Guha, one of his critics, describing him as a “nobody” and “not a scholar of mainstream”.