The controversy regarding the usage of cartoons in text books refuses to die down with yet another academician with impeccable credentials joining issue with Prof. Prabhat Patnaik for his criticism of the use of cartoons and his comment that academicians are not accountable while parliamentarians are. Prof. Neeladri Bhattacharya from the Centre for Historical Studies in the Jawaharlal Nehru University and also Chief Adviser to the NCERT for History textbooks has taken objection to the piece written by Prof. Patnaik a week ago by saying that Prof. Patnaik has shifted the focus from "creative pedagogy" to "political accountability" and that in doing so he (Prof. Patnaik) has painted a picture of academicians as irresponsible people since they are deemed to be unaccountable. He has also questioned defence of parliament based in a liberal (ideology) based system while he, Prof. Patnaik is an avowed critique of liberalism. There is a great deal of circumlocution in Prof. Bhattacharya's piece but one tangible point is that he has rightly questioned Prof. Patnaik's assumption that textbook writing is an activity that falls under the ambit of the State and the parliament and therefore members of parliament can legitimately seek the removal of content that they find objectionable. Prof. Bhattacharya's contention is that the NCERT is a semi-autonomous body, akin to a university and is well within its right to choose those that it deems fit as advisers and writers and accountability lies in this process itself.
First let me say that Prof. Bhattacharya's position is far more realistic and logical than the one taken by Prof. Patnaik. Let me explain the reason for this stance. What I am saying is limited to the fact that bodies such as NCERT or universities have to remain autonomous and cannot be asked to kowtow the whims and fancies of parliamentarians. Prof. Bhattacharya has rightly questioned Prof. Patnaik when he has said that it is not just academicians who can carry prejudices that arise out of their social position but also parliamentarians. What Prof. Bhattacharya stopped short of saying was that politicians can, if given the power, rewrite certain things in social sciences in a manner that is convenient to them. This is where I accuse Prof. Bhattacharya or circumlocution. It is well known that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar have been advocating the rewriting of history textbooks (something that concerns Prof. Bhattacharya since he is a historian). The BJP's avowed agenda is to debunk what it calls the myth of the Aryans as invaders and has been arguing to rewrite history textbooks which show the Aryans as the sons of the soil, a claim that is being consistently contested by the likes of Prof. Romilla Thapar. I am quite sure that Prof. Bhattacharya also would side with Prof. Thapar rather than with the BJP. He could easily have posed this question to Prof. Patnaik. If a BJP dominated parliament comes into being and if it can then claim its accountability to the people card and ask that history textbooks be written depicting the Aryans as the sons of the soil, would that position be acceptable to Prof. Patnaik? Instead of asking a question directly Prof. Bhattacharya beat around various bushes including the now mandatory defence of Dalit writings (which to me is akin to the affirmative action in the USA where there is always a token black playing positive role in a Hollywood film - in fact I would contend that Hollywood if forced to show God in an anthropomorphic form, would choose a black actor like Morgan Freeman), the value of creative pedagogy, the right to self expression etc.
This is the circumlocution that I am referring to. Is it because that a newspaper demands a certain number of words in an article that academicians take recourse to writing about things which are extraneous to the issue under discussion? Prof. Bhattacharya has said that the politicians are objecting to not one but 150 cartoons in various disciplines. So the question is why did this particular cartoon become a national issue while the existence while objections to 149 others has not even come into the limelight. The answer is simple. This particular cartoon involves a Dalit Icon in the form of Dr. Ambedkar being shown in poor light through a question raised by an upper caste icon Jawaharlal Nehru. So if this is the problem why are so many professors (Prof. Palshikar, Prof. Patnaik and now Prof. Bhattacharya) not addressing the problem directly and talking about creative pedagogy and the right to expression. It does not require someone with tremendous intellectual ability to realize that the cartoon offends Dalit sensibilities and that given the nature of Indian society and politics today, it is right to remove the cartoon from way back in 1949 from a textbook in the 21st Century. Now what is happening is that Prof. Patnaik is arguing for this above position (and rightly so in my opinion) while Prof. Bhattacharya seems to fight a proxy war on behalf of the cartoonist to establish the point that Ambedkar is not beyond reproach. I would concur with anyone who would say that Ambedkar has made his share of mistakes, for he is human and I am yet to find one human who has been perfect and if such a being is if at all found, then that being is God and certainly not human. As an aside I would like to say here that today a mythology has been created where Gandhi (Mohandas) has successfully been shown as anti-dalit and pro-casteist and not one single academician has ever written anything about this wrong portrayal. In fact, half baked writers such as Arundhati Roy who cannot differentiate between various orifices in the human body and their functions feels at ease and is completely comfortable taking pot shots at the great man while attacking Babu Rao Hazare, who is as much a Gandhian as Hitler is one.
But to come back to the question of creative pedagogy. I have always been very uncomfortable with the use of the term creative. This discomfort of mine arises from the fact that most people including myself have trouble defining what constitutes the creative and how much of anything that is usually considered creative legitimate as in being non-controversial. Do we set out with the idea that we will do things differently so that we can be called creative or does creativity become an intuitive reaction and a different way of doing things when certain established ways or processes do not produce desired results or when they start producing results that are the opposite of the desired results? I will leave that as a question and end with another
two with the assurance that you are completely capable of judging things for yourself. Does creativity have to self conscious and does it have to involve drama? Is the introduction of cartoons into textbooks an act of creativity? Like I said, you know the answers.
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