LETTHERE BE FUN IN THE BOOK

Among the likely fallouts of the controversy around Shankar’s cartoon in the Class XI political science textbook is the possibility of rolling back the books and the entire process that saw the creation of some of the best school textbooks by an autonomous agency, NCERT, in recent years. That would be a catastrophe.

Faced with a mob- like situation in Parliament, with MPs across party lines, including from Congress and its own constituent parties skewering the UPA Government, it is inconceivable that the immediate response of the HRD minister could have been much different from what it was— an apology, decision to withdraw the book in its present form and an inquiry. The mob attack on Suhas Palshikar’s office a day later must have added to the retreat of the Government. Dalits obviously form such a vital electoral constituency in India’s politics that no party or government can hope to retain or come back to power if they are even mildly displeased; and in this case, they were wrathful. The reaction of the MPs was, however, on expected lines.

Whereas one must always be aware and cognisant of the historical injustices to Dalits and its impact on Dalit consciousness, what was surprising was some prominent Dalit intellectuals proclaiming that Ambedkar was a prophet to the Dalits and any suspicion of defamation or disgrace would never be tolerated and must be punished. By such deification, the political relevance of Ambedkar is in danger of being marginalised, to the detriment of Dalit interests, which ought to be obvious at least to the Dalit intellectuals and academics, if not the political activists and MPs. Such deification of a remarkable person who made the material- rational philosophy of Buddha the guiding doctrine for Dalit cause is particularly ironic.

The 60th year of the formation of Parliament is also a time of celebration for the creation of the Constitution that made the Parliament, the judiciary and the executive possible, in which Ambedkar played a key role. These state structures are meant to prevent or deal with precisely what the cartoon controversy saw unleashed: A mob culture. One of these structures, namely the judiciary, must now be allowed to play its role; otherwise we could be witnessing the handing down of banana justice.

Not everyone agrees with the agitated MPs and some Dalit intellectuals that the cartoon, first drawn in 1949 and seen by Ambedkar himself, is derogatory. If it is alleged to be defamatory and insulting then it must be put under the scanner of rule of law, as defamatory charges routinely are. The tenets of justice enshrined in India’s Constitution demand that the Government, instead of accepting only the agitated and emotional argument, invoke the court of law to decide whether the cartoon with the accompanying text is indeed insulting and defamatory. MPs and media do not decide on guilt and punishment in matters of civil disputes, crimes or defamation; courts do. Anything else would damage the justice structure of the state immeasurably.

More importantly, it would be terrible if the Government decided to dump the baby with the bath water by deciding to roll back all the books, or the process of making books in place from 2006 after the adoption of the National Curriculum Framework in 2005. For the first time, the much desired involvement of a large number of creative minds and innovative practitioners in preparing learning material for schoolchildren was put into place through this initiative of NCERT, and the very best people readily volunteered. The drafts were overseen by a monitoring committee which was anything but ornamental. I was involved in recommending the axing of the complete draft of the Class III mathematics book, which the writers’ group heroically rewrote from scratch, in spite of time constraints. There were many more examples of draft material being changed, removed and rewritten once found unsuitable, including, one must add, when deemed that it could be derogatory to a particular section of society, ‘ hurting their sentiments’, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly widespread in the country. This resulted in many skirmishes between the writing groups and the monitoring committee, but the process went on in the best academic spirit, without creating enemies of one another. Holding another review by a committee headed by Professor Thorat is fine, but this should not be done with the intention of expunging all cartoons and visuals in one stroke without justification, and in particular, with a view to recommend reverting back to pedagogically unsound, uninteresting and boring books of the past.

MPs and media do not decide on guilt and punishment in matters of civil disputes, crimes or defamation; courts

do. Anything

Vinod Raina was a member of the Monitoring Committee for the textbooks