NCERT chairman J S Rajput, at the hub of the controversy over new school textbooks, defends himself against allegations of bias. Excerpts from an interview with SANTWANA BHATTACHARYA of The Sunday Express:The Supreme Court verdict has gone in the favour of the National Curriculum Policy. But the debate on the saffronisation of education is still smouldering. With new set of social science books out last week, don’t you think apprehensions remain?As far as we are concerned, the debate is over. We brought out the syllabi and then the new books. It should have been a professional debate, involving teachers, parents, children and relevant groups — that is, the real stakeholders. We are still waiting for the response of the real stakeholders.The big idea behind the review of the curriculum/syllabi was upgradation. In what way do the new textbooks provide a different perspective?We have tried to widen the perspective. The media has only focused on medieval history. You have to review the curriculum at regular intervals. Every country has to do it, the whole country was looking forward to it. After all, obsolescence has to be removed. What we are emphasising is not just acquisition of knowledge, but the concept of a child learning on his or her own. And on project-based learning.HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi and you have said that in your history and social science books you were correcting facts of history which you felt were distorted. Can you give me some specific examples?I have never said that we are ‘‘correcting history’’. There are various schools of history. What we have done is not present one viewpoint held by one school of historians. Take the question of the Aryan invasion. There are very strong theories among recent historians refuting the whole concept of an Aryan invasion. How could we have not talked about it? The Aryan invasion concept reflects a Euro-centric approach to history, and we have made the correction. And we have carried out suggestions from children, teachers, principals. We are not bothered about a small coterie of people which is unhappy with us.Coming back to project-based learning, it has been pointed out that you have introduced ideology very subtly even there. For example, you have identified specific Hindu-Jain-Buddhist monuments, even the Bamiyan Buddha. But not Islamic or Sikh heritage.I feel sad for those who observe that certain categories of monuments are not mentioned. They should have faith in our institutions. For a child, it is his/her heritage. It is neither Islamic nor Hindu. Like the Taj Mahal is not Islamic heritage per se, it is Indian heritage. But I am open to all kinds of suggestions from experts. But what about spelling errors, shoddy writing, incorrect grammar in the new textbooks?Now some people are saying that we have spelt Vasco da Gama’s name wrongly in our social science book. Yes, it is an error which has crept in. We’ll correct it in the coming editions. But then, Fa Hien’s name was spelt differently in three places in the earlier book. We didn’t make an issue of it. The NCERT, one has to admit, has worked under tremendous stress, created by people with vested interests. That has told on the production of textbooks. We are conscious of our responsibilities.There have been other errors also. Madagascar has been put in the Arabian Sea, it has been said that the East India Company was established in India.You have pointed out just a few. I have a whole list of errors that have crept in. We are taking care of that. The issue is, we would like a professional organisation — not a political or ideologically-driven one — to come forward and point out the discrepancies. In fact, we are requesting the teachers to scrutinise our books.It is being said that your history book also projects a particular view of the Indian subcontinent — an undivided Hindu landmass that runs from the Hindu Kush to Burma.This is the most amazing thing. The history book is not out. How can people talk when they have not seen the book? I have never seen this — reviews of books that are yet to appear! The English media is giving space to absurd apprehensions.But you can’t deny the gender bias in these books. Even frontline women leaders are missing from the national struggle.I accept this suggestion. We will examine this issue. We have a department of women’s studies, we’ll go to them for rectification and we’ll certainly include the contribution of women leaders. You know, it is not as if we did not keep in mind this question of gender bias.Can you highlight three achievements of your curriculum and the new direction taken by your publications?It is learner-friendly, it will equip children for future learning and it is a lighter syllabus which will go well with the poorer sections of the population and the rural areas.
