New Delhi: From the Uttar Pradesh government’s push to include “4th Century Vaimanik Shastra” that deals with “invisible planes” in the curriculum, to Haryana’s proposal to project philosopher Maharishi Kanada as the “father of atomic theory”, the Centre has over the past year received a series of suggestions from various states as it works to revise school textbooks.
The proposals, which ThePrint has seen, were officially submitted by the states between 2022 and 2023 to the national steering committee of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous body under the ministry of education, in charge of drawing up the school syllabus and textbooks in India.
For example, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Haryana’s submission, stressed on the need to incorporate topics that will help students “analyse the mistakes of the past that let us be ruled by invaders like Mughals and the British and taking a lesson from them”. The submission added that this could not be made a part of syllabi so long owing to the “fear of hurting the religious sentiments of a large population”.
The records show that state after state has written to the committee that the new textbooks, cutting across subjects, should be loaded with the ancient “knowledge of India”.
The suggestions range from the need to have chapters on “cloud-like planes described by Maharishi Bharadwaj” — by Uttar Pradesh — to Gujarat’s pitch to treat astrology and astronomy as “two sides of the same coin”. Both are states governed by the BJP.
Madhya Pradesh, also a BJP-ruled state, wants the “essence of the Upanishads, Gita, Mahabharat, Ramayana” to be part of the history curriculum.
Goa, also under the BJP, has underlined that “no nation can develop national pride by learning the content that is predominantly non-Indian and often critical of Indian culture”.
The submissions have been made by ‘state focus groups’, comprising academic experts, teachers and professors, and are important as the Centre is following a “bottom-up approach” in developing the textbooks, according to official NCERT guidelines.
ThePrint has reached the NCERT director’s office over email and WhatsApp for response on the proposals. The article will be updated once a response is received.
Syllabus and textbook development exercises have triggered controversy in the past, with concerns being voiced over the “saffronisation” of textbooks.
The matter is so politically contested in nature that between 2000 and 2005, school textbooks were revised twice, first by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government (1999 to 2004), and later by the United Progressive Alliance government under Manmohan Singh.
The NCERT had in 2021 formulated a 21-member steering panel, chaired by former Indian Space Research Organisation chairperson K. Kasturirangan, for the development of the National Curriculum Framework, which lays out the broad contours for changes in the school curriculum and pedagogical structure.
Currently, another committee, notified by the NCERT in July, comprising author and philanthropist Sudha Murthy, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chairman Bibek Debroy, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue Chamu Krishna Shastry and singer Shankar Mahadevan is working on developing the new textbooks.
ThePrint looks at some of the suggestions made by states.
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‘Knowledge of India’
At the level of the states and Union Territories (UTs), 25 focus groups have been created in each state, including one on the subject “knowledge of India”.
ThePrint reviewed the submissions, made in the form of ‘position papers’, of all the states and UTs on this topic. These position papers will be taken into account by the textbook development committee, according to NCERT guidelines.
The focus group from Uttar Pradesh, constituted by the State Council of Educational Research and Training, has stated in its paper that while “it is taught in history books and school curriculum that the Wright Brothers invented the aircraft, this is wrong”.
“In the ‘Vaimanik Shastra’ written by Maharishi Bharadwaj in the 4th century BC, many types of a flying instrument ‘vimana’ were described and many rules and types of aerial warfare were told. ‘Godha’ was such a plane, which could be invisible. ‘Paroksh’ could paralyse enemy aircraft. The ‘Pralaya’ was a type of electrical energy weapon, which could cause terrible destruction to the pilot. ‘Jald Roop’ was such a plane, which looked like a cloud in appearance,” states UP’s position paper.
The paper added: “It is mentioned in Volume 3 Adhyay 23 of Skanda Purana that sage Kardam had designed a vimana for his wife by which one could travel anywhere. There is also a mention of Pushpak Vimana in the [epic] Ramayana in which Ravana took Sitaji away.”
Gujarat, in its paper, suggested that students be taught the importance of astrology, saying it has importance in Indian society even today.
“Astrology and astronomy are two sides of the same coin. Astrological predictions of solar eclipses and lunar eclipses are possible because of calculations. That is, the sun depends on the motion of the moon,” it added.
While most states have made a strong push to introduce chapters on “Vedic Mathematics” in their submissions, Gujarat has gone one step ahead, claiming that the “formulas of Vedic Mathematics are equal to computer software to operate the universe”.
The state’s focus group also claimed that “historians say the rocket was invented by India”, “Krishna’s [character in the epic Mahabharat, worshipped as a deity] grandson had ammunition rockets”, “[astrologer-astronomer] Varahamihira made predictions about earthquakes in the 5th Century which show the greatness of the Indians”.
Among the states that recommended that students be taught that philosopher and sage Kanada “came up with the atomic theory much before English chemist John Dalton” are UP, Jharkhand, and Haryana, which also proposed that textbooks, while dealing with Isaac Newton’s Laws of Gravity, “may mention that Acharya Kanada had written in Vaisheshika Sutra (an ancient Sanskrit text) about the law of motion”.
“Similarly, much before the discovery of Atoms by John Dalton, Rishi Kanada stated that the smallest indivisible form of matter is Parmanu. He even explained the dimension, motion and even the chemical reactions of Parmanu and its compound form. Such facts may be mentioned in textbooks along with modern discoveries. This will bring out a sense of pride among students and a feel-good factor,” stated Haryana’s submission.
Chhattisgarh, which is governed by the Congress, has proposed that events described in Indian epics, including Sita descending in the earth and “Hanumanji taking a part of the mountain to Lanka [both from the Ramayana] can be combined and placed in textbooks so that future generations will be able to understand the highest level of ancient knowledge”.
While many of these states highlighted the ancient Gurukul system of imparting education that prevailed in ancient India in their position papers on ‘Indian Knowledge System’, Nagaland, where BJP is part of the state government, pushed back, pointing out that “women were not admitted to the Gurukuls. There was caste discrimination as only Kshatriyas were allowed, Eklavya (a character from the epic Mahabharata) was not given admission to the Gurukul”.
‘Superstition in the name of antiquity’?
The YSRCP-led Andhra Pradesh (AP) government, in its proposal, underlined the need to “create a curriculum that does not succumb to superstition in the name of antiquity”.
Bihar, ruled by the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal (United) combine, also argued that “Indian education needs to balance the critical evaluation of achievements of the earlier periods and the pride to be an Indian”.
“From the traditional Indian perspective, sharing religious and yogic literature with undeserving people was considered a sin. It has confined the spiritual and yogic canons to various Mathas and small groups of practitioners… The caste system in the present time has become a social bane and a burden for the developing nation,” the Bihar focus group said.
Karnataka also made strong observations in its submission, which was prepared by a focus group constituted by the state’s previous BJP government, stating that education systems at the state as well as central levels have “in the garb of secularisation systematically ushered our impressionable minds into the zone of rootlessness and ignorance of the achievements by their very own ancestors”.
“Therefore, events such as the genocide of the Malabar Hindus (referred to as the Moplah riots), the genocide of Maharashtrian brahmins, the genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Hindus and many others have not made it to the textbooks as part of mainstream history or political science and has been relegated to be learnt from local communities. The bipartisanship that we face today amid the ‘woke culture’ is much more tumultuous now compared to a few decades ago,” the Karnataka focus group submitted.
The new Congress government in Karnataka this week constituted a panel to formulate the Karnataka State Education Policy, appointing former University Grant Commission chief Sukhdev Thorat as its chairman.
In its poll manifesto, the Congress had said it would withdraw the recommendations made by the committee formed by the BJP government.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)