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Journalism of Courage
A day after the HRD Ministry’s second history panel sent out an advisory on NCERT textbooks, a member of the first panel raised doubts on the impact it will have.
Professor S. Settar, historian and a member of the three-man committee that first looked into the textbooks of Murli Manohar Joshi’s time, wonders whether teachers will take yesterday’s advisory seriously and implement it to the best of their understanding and ability. ‘‘I have my doubts,’’ Settar said today.
The historian felt only ‘‘if the teacher is ideologically inclined in a particular way’’, he or she would take real interest in the changes that have been suggested. Otherwise, ‘‘the teacher would be more eager to complete the syllabus’’.
Settar maintained that the best way out would have been to find alternative textbooks. The first panel, comprising Settar and professors J.S. Grewal and Barun De, had made the recommendation which was turned down by the NCERT executive council and the HRD Ministry.
Settar added that the advisory was ‘‘balanced’’. ‘‘There are two things about it which I noticed. It carried the spirit of the panel recommendations and it also does not surrender to the earlier (both Joshi and pre-Joshi) texts,’’ he said.
Settar stressed history-writing shouldn’t be viewed within the confines of NCERT alone. He emphasised the need to write history afresh without the burden of either the Joshi era texts or pre-Joshi ones.
