Written By Tushar Gandhi
Once again, we face the dangers posed by the political corruption of education. The attempt is to subvert basic knowledge in order to instil motivated lies in the minds of impressionable students. It is easier to build a superstructure of falsehoods on a foundation of lies.
The matter at hand is the recent exercise of deletions in the curriculum by NCERT. The concern is the attempt to “sanitise” these textbooks. It has been reported that crucial references to Bapu — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi — have been “dropped” from political science textbooks of Class 12. The political eraser has been rampantly utilised. After The Indian Express carried a front-page report of the same, NCERT has issued several statements in a banal attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
Replacing history, with a version more suitable to its ideology, has been the agenda of the Sangh Parivar. It started with the first NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Then it was called the “Batraisation” of history. The present government is carrying this exercise out much more blatantly.
There were three things about Mahatma Gandhi that the Sangh hated: His assertion of being a Sanatani Hindu, his avowed belief in being inclusive, Sarva Dharma Samanatva, and most importantly Samata, equality amongst all in Hinduism. The first documented attempt on his life in India took place in Pune while he was on a provincial tour, the Harijan Yatra, for the emancipation of Dalits. A hand grenade was hurled at his car in Pune, in 1934. Fortunately, Bapu emerged unscathed. The intense Gandhi hate campaign was carried out by upper caste “Sanatani” Hindus, Savarkarite “Hindutva” fanatics from what is now Maharashtra. The present attempt to erase history is a continuation of this agenda.
One of the reasons oft-used to justify Bapu’s assassination in 1948 is that “he had to be murdered because of his continuing appeasement of Muslims”. L K Advani very successfully beguiled the nation with his favourite allegation of “tushtikaran” appeasement of minorities. It is not at all surprising that the NCERT has specifically deleted references where the Sangh could be implicated. “Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” — it had to go.
The Sangh has always denied its involvement in Bapu’s murder. The ban imposed on the organisation in the immediate aftermath was an affirmation of its involvement. The Sangh’s campaign that it was absolved of the accusation of being complicit in Bapu’s murder by the courts is puerile. Unfortunately, the Sangh was never put on trial in the Gandhi murder case and so the courts, both in the Red Fort trial and the Punjab High Court, were not able to try it and award a conviction. The ban is the only indication that even Sardar Patel, whom they now desperately try to appropriate, was convinced that the Sangh was guilty. He enacted the ban. The mention of the ban on the RSS in the wake of Gandhi’s murder in school textbooks is a reaffirmation of this: “…organisations like the RSS were banned for some time”. No wonder it has been removed. Once this information is imprinted on the minds of impressionable students, how could the Sangh instil lies and misinformation? The RSS has also implied that Sardar Patel was correcting his mistake, and that the revocation of the ban was a confirmation that they were not involved in Bapu’s murder. The truth is far from it. The ban on the RSS was lifted after the top RSS leadership pledged to refrain from political activities and only indulge in social programmes. It was also due to the Congress government’s belief in forgiveness. Now that the “objectionable” sentences have been removed from the textbook, it will become easier for them to rewrite a much more convenient version of history. That is their agenda.
The Sangh in its campaign to vilify Bapu has always claimed that the patriot Nathuram Godse had saved the nation by murdering Gandhi. So how can they allow a line that contradicts their most important accusation against Bapu? “Gandhi’s death had a magical effect on the communal situation in the country”. This sentence also condemns them by implying that Bapu’s influence on the nation, on all its components, all communities, bothered them, hurt their divisive agenda.
No, the present exercise of erasing inconvenient history from textbooks is not surprising. It is an ongoing effort to erase history and replace it with one much more convenient and beneficial to the Sangh Parivar. To eventually present a “Hindutva-ised” Gandhi, who would be much more convenient for them.
It is impossible to suppress the truth forever — the most powerful tyrants have failed in this quest. Truth has always prevailed over lies, but lies inflict damage which is difficult to repair. That is why civil society has to remain vigilant and expose such attempts and bring it to the notice of the people and bravely and loudly speak the truth.
The writer is the author of Let’s Kill Gandhi and The Lost Diary of Kastur, My Ba
