By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
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At its root, the whole controversy on cartoons in NCERT textbooks underlines the malaise afflicting political debate in the country: passions whipped up in aid of divisive political ambitions. Here, rage and slanging matches trump reasoned debate. One of the stated reasons for the order of the six-member panel constituted to review cartoons — that politicians and bureaucrats can’t be shown in an ‘incorrect’ way — amply reveals that undemocratic spirit. Some of the suggestions of the panel, say, about changing the captions of cartoons that have appeared years ago border on the Orwellian. This is not just tantamount to changing history, it is indicative of school textbooks and curriculum being tinkered with according to ideological inclinations in India. Often, it is one political party or the other raising a furore over such issues, citing the oft-invoked ‘hurt sentiments’ theory.
Which is just another means of reinforcing the social and political faultlines the entire political class thrives on, given that it envisages politics as a competitive identity management project. Just as people’s representatives cannot amend, just because they have a majority, say, the theory of relativity, they cannot decide the school syllabus. There is a National Curriculum Framework, meant to further a consultative approach to framing school textbooks, but that fact is drowned in the cacophony of contesting, and largely manufactured, rage.
