The spirit of Karnataka in jeopardy in textbooks

Pedagogic issues ignored in a rush to implement Revisionist Programme

The mild aroma of printing-ink from freshly printed textbooks is evocative and a memorable part of one’s journey through school. However, even before the books are distributed and opened, a serious controversy has erupted. This controversy cannot be brushed aside as mere political rhetoric. The arguments that have surfaced call for every citizen’s attention. Perhaps, the most important line of debate is related to the making of modern Karnataka.

Schools in Karnataka resumed their routine work after severe disruptions due to the Covid pandemic. With all pending examinations done and results out, as the new academic year begins, over one crore children and teenagers have returned to 77,000 schools.

The name ‘Erloo bin Narayan’ may not ring any bells for the government, but it should. Erloo was a boy from Dharwad district who belonged to the Mahar community (now classified as SC). He was denied school admission in 1856 and managed to have a complaint sent to Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone in Bombay.

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After three years of correspondence between the Governor’s office and the Education secretary of London, admission was granted. By then Erloo had disappeared. Seven decades later, Dr B R Ambedkar found his letter in the Bombay government files. His travel to Dharwad in search of Erloo’s family did not yield results, but the boy’s quest for inclusion in education found a permanent place in Dr Ambedkar’s mind.

The placement of education as a subject in the concurrent list, with school education predominantly with the state and higher education mainly with the Union Government, is to ensure that there is no denial of access to education. Karnataka has come a long way since the days of Erloo.

Regressive journey

However, the controversy surrounding textbook revision is an indication that the state has started on a regressive journey.

In order to grasp why the journey is in the reverse direction, it is necessary to see the evolution of the idea of textbooks. Text, a term drawn upon the Latin ‘textile’ and ‘texture’, was used to indicate the state of ‘being woven together.’

Texts, be it the ‘sutra-path’ of Panini or the ancient Roman ‘textum’ or the early American text ‘The New England Primer’ or the colonial textbooks discussed by Dharampal in his work on pre-colonial education, all had a common purpose. It was to weave the minds of children together into a dominant national or cultural narrative.

All textbooks are based on this principle, in both good and bad times. Mahatma Gandhi had, therefore, written in 1937 that “if textbooks alone are to be used as vehicle of knowledge, the living presence of a teacher’s mind will have no space in education.”

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The cultural context of the text

For almost a thousand years since Basavanna, Karnataka formed its identity through a lively dialectic between the ‘living presence of a teacher’s mind’ and the ‘dominant national narrative’. What defines Karnataka is the rich history of the tension between the two.

The best of Karnataka’s medieval scholarship was devoted to subversive and creative re-interpretations of older texts, not a mechanical adoption and extension. The Rohit Chakrathirtha Committee appears to have set aside the historical reality of the very spirit of learning in Karnataka as well as the principle of inclusion that Dr Ambedkar embedded in the Constitution.

In 2017, a somewhat similar textbook controversy erupted in Europe. In the wake of Brexit, the British textbooks moved over to a more critical discussion of a unified Europe than German textbooks which still promoted Martin Schulz’s expansionist idea of a ‘United States of Europe by 2025’. The intention of educators in both countries was to socialise young learners into their respective national ideologies.

Raising questions

The protests against the revisions in textbooks are not futile. The Kannada writers objecting to the new texts on the block are raising pertinent questions: What, after all, is the narrative of Karnataka? What should textbooks be composed of to weave the spirit and being of Karnataka into the minds of young learners? What kind of texts will socialise them as citizens of the world who live in India, who belong to the state of Karnataka— a country that the Constitution defines as a ‘Union of States’?

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If K V Puttappa gets truncated in a text, will the mind of readers have a place for vishwamanavata or universal humanism and develop a sacred affinity with their native Kannada Nadu? That love for Karnataka cannot come by merely using bombastic Sanskritised words or absurd English abbreviations — a tendency rife in the present regime.

If Devanur Mahadeva, a champion of freedom of expression and an outstanding writer, withdrew permission to use his Edege Bidda Akshara in textbooks, this should serve as enough of a reason for the government to halt its ideological cleansing and revisionist programme.

In the heat of controversies, tempers rise and wise counsel takes a back seat. Hence, the withdrawal of permissions by various writers are narrowed to questions of caste and party politics by trolls.

A teacher’s dilemma

Classroom transactions and the development of cognitive abilities are entirely overlooked. Think, for instance, of the inclusion of ‘Nijavada aadarsha purusha yaaraagabeku?’ a Kannada rendering of K B Hedgewar’s lecture. The chapter is supposed to bring up the nature of ‘ideals’. The essence of the lecture is that the principle matters, not the person. Since the lesson is meant for Class 10, the teacher would be required to do background research before introducing the lesson on why and when the author said this.

A conscientious teacher will find out that Hedgewar was under pressure from his svayamsevaks to join the Dandi march by Mahatma Gandhi, an event that he had refused to join. He was more concerned with the growth of the RSS and worried about the growing aura of the Mahatma. Later, his dislike for Gandhiji increased and persons nurtured in the RSS ecology conspired to eliminate him. Will the conscientious teacher enjoy teaching the text?

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And an inquisitive student is likely to ask, “Not a person but a principle? Which principle does the author imply?” Is the teacher supposed to say, truthfully, ‘the principle of militant Hindutva?’

If, indeed, a teacher believes that that is the right way forward for India, will she not be contributing to the rise in the number of non-state actors, ready for violent ‘out-of-law’ activities?

These are serious pedagogic issues. The Karnataka government must decide what its understanding of the Karnataka cultural identity is. It should decide if it wants to negate the social, philosophical and cultural struggles that Karnataka took up during the last millennium to make it a modern, humane and inclusive state.

(G N Devy is a writer, thinker & academic)