Anyone who has been following the news in India will be familiar with the row that has been raised by the incorporation of a cartoon in a newspaper by Shankar from the year 1949 into a class XII NCERT text book of today. The row led to the vandalizing of the offices of one of the members of the NCERT committee and resignation of the two people involved in the creating of the guidelines for the said textbook. Both the persons are fairly well known academicians with reasonable credentials. The politicians have a raised a ruckus over the cartoon since it depicts the impatience of Jawaharlal Nehru with the slow progress of the draft committee headed by B R Ambedkar. Since then there have been many articles and interviews with eminent academicians who have contended against the perceptions of politicians that young adults are incapable of understanding the true meaning of things and therefore can be misled into believing the wrong things and therefore the offending cartoon must go. In retaliation the academia has said that young adults are fully capable of judging things for themselves and that it is necessary to inculcate a sense of humour in all concerned. Some have even said that a picture speaks more than a thousand words and therefore there is nothing wrong with cartoons in text books and in fact they were much required.
Of the two people who resigned over this issue, Prof. Suhas Palshikar (it was his office that was vandalized) wrote a piece in the Hindu a few days ago defending the insertion of the said cartoon into the lesson. I read the article a couple of times and I was completely disappointed with the content of the article. There was nothing in the article that read as a viable defence of the cartoon in the textbook. In fact, Prof. Palshikar, circumlocuted around how Ambedkar was also a critic of Buddhism and how he cannot be reduced to only one thing which is the defence of the rights of the dalits alone. In my opinion this had very little to do with the hue and cry that were talking about the denigration of a leader (by some) and of both leaders involved (by a few others). This circumlocution did not add to any clarity of any kind about the issue. Dr. Yogendra Yadav the other person who resigned has maintained a stoic silence.
Today's Hindu carried a piece on the subject by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik a well known economist of the country. Well I do not share the ideological vantage point that Prof. Patnaik uses for his understanding of things, I have always had great respect for his scholarship and learning. In fact while studying at the JNU I made it a point to attend his classes whenever I could even though I was not a student of Economics. His perspectives have always been crystal clear and they are reflected in his writing as well. And today's article was no different. The ability of Prof. Patnaik to separate the wheat from the chaff has laid bare some of the issues that actually constitute the noise around the issue. Prof. Patnaik is very right in saying that things such as creativity, necessity of cartoons in textbooks, freedom of the academia are all issues that skirt the main issue. In his true and mature style Prof. Patnaik has asked the question of how freedom of academia (consisting of people not directly accountable to the people) can be prioritised over that of the Members of Parliament who are elected by the people on the basis one person/one vote (I mention this for a reason which will become evident in the subsequent lines of this post) and are therefore accountable to those who have voted for them. He also questioned, and very rightly, the objectivity of academicians who more often than not carry all the prejudices that their positions in society carry. He also pointed out rather starkly but in an extremely dignified manner the fact that circa 1949 dalit voices in the country were not yet in a position to be made themselves heard and that in 2012 all that has changed. This is the actual point. Those supporting the academicians and those opposing them are all actually talking about B R Ambedkar's position as a dalit leader and Nehru as an upper caste politician criticising him and Shankar drawing a cartoon around this. So circumlocution has been happening because nobody seems to be willing to take the bull by the horns.
At this point I would like to say that by making Ambedkar an icon of the dalits his status has also become that of a holy cow that is beyond and above all criticism. But that is not and need not be contended against. What is more important is why should this controversy become a part of education? What purpose do cartoons serve in textbooks? I went to school and there never were any cartoons in books and I do not believe that my education is deficient in anyway. And as very correctly pointed out by Prof. Patnaik what purpose does sense humour serve in education? Is that an integral part of the curriculum or more importantly should it be a part of the curriculum and if so why?
But I do have a small bone to pick with Prof. Patnaik. And that concerns the issue of accountability. In theory, elected representatives are accountable to their constituents, but in reality in India as in most parts of the world they are not. So Prof. Patnaik's observations about a "political class" are not entirely accurate. Whether he likes it or not, politicians cutting across all lines watch out for each other, irrespective of their public proclamations. I would say Prof. Patnaik's observations pitting the ideal scenario against the actual situation and that for me is unsustainable. In his glorifying the idea of one person/one vote Prof. Patnaik has conveniently ignored the problems of the simple majority system that is followed in India and in most democracies of the world. I do not need to tell you this but I will put up a simple example here. The size of the constituency (imaginary) is 100 people and there are two candidates A and B contesting an election from this constituency. Let us say candidate A gets 51 votes while B gets 49 votes. In a simple majority system A represents the whole constituency despite being opposed by a number of people who almost equal those who supported him. A look at the data available in India about elections shows that parties have come into power rarely with the support of even 50% of voters and sometimes the figure is as low as 34%. Prof. Patnaik has by drawing the analogy of Babu Rao Hazare's movement and the support it garnered from the middle classes has indicted the middle classes as the cause behind the controversy. I myself am against the movement of Hazare and his cronies and I believe that they are methodically undermining institutions. But this situation is not analogous to Hazare's movement and its agenda. I personally think Prof. Patnaik could have made his points without getting dragged into bigger issues that only confuse people more than clarify.
I believe that the middle class and the rich class in India have been most irresponsible towards the society in which they live and therefore have successfully undermined a solidarity that should be the backbone of the society in which we all live. And however much we criticize this deliberate and wanton abandoning of their social responsibilities by the rich and middle classes it is not enough. But the question here is not about the perceptions of the middle class and therefore I believe that while doing the right thing Prof. Patnaik has undermined his own argument by trying to support it with issues of class. In India the middle class is not a monolith nor is it homogeneous. In a country where caste matters more than anything it is not possible to talk about a class. The membership to the middle class as an economic entity has been rising and there are people from the not so upper castes and some lower castes who do belong to the middle class in terms of their incomes and their aspirations. They would not support the vilification of Ambedkar so this is not a category to be brought out at all. I request you to read the piece written by Prof. Patnaik (despite my criticism about a couple of aspects) since it is an excellent a lucid piece of writing and make your opinions on it and the issue it addresses. For the record, I believe that there is no need for cartoons in textbooks, especially at a time when caste identities have become important (sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly).
P.S: Not proof read, please excuse errors of syntax and spelling.
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