Textbooks: The latest political battleground

Political ideologies have always shaped education as it remains a powerful means of forging individuals into specific ideological frameworks. In the contemporary neoliberal world order, students are taught and gradually convinced that competition is the key to a successful life. Neoliberalism, as a political project, seeks to achieve the normalisation of its values and expectations through
education. 

Historically, political ideologies have used education either to promote
scientific rationality or to cultivate conservative and divisive worldviews.
In these contending ideological visions, textbooks often become sites of
contestation.

One of the major developments of the 20th century was the emergence of Nazism in Germany and the corresponding actions of the Nazi state in reframing different sectors such as education. 

In schools, history was taught to glorify the German nation, biology was primarily made into race science. Textbooks were rewritten to emphasise militarism and promote Nazi political ideology. Girls were taught to become good wives and mothers.

Being part of the ‘Band of German Maidens’, which involved an elaborate training component, was mandatory.

Nazism was an example of how a political ideology could turn into an educational project, transforming the outlook of the individual through changes in curriculum and pedagogy.

According to experts, when Hitler came to power, the schools for boys and girls were separated with few exceptions. This was because boys and girls had different goals — boys were positioned to be soldiers and girls to be mothers and homemakers. 

The Nazi Primer (official handbook for schooling the Hitler Youth) talked about the superiority of the Nordic races and how people of the highest social order ought to procreate only with each other to produce a larger and stronger social order.

The German youth were taught to take their land back as well as expand. In fact, the Nazi education system had developed a full-fledged pedagogical system to ensure that the students were convinced with these ideologies. 

According to scholars, the Nazi education system was producing pseudo-scientific research by the 1930s. Many of the indoctrinated youth formed guerrilla groups, known as ‘werewolves’, even after Germany’s surrender in May 1945. Recognising the destructive potential of such ideological conditioning, post-World War II Germany undertook significant reforms in its educational system, aiming to cultivate a more democratic, non-divisive, and non-violent citizenry.

Politics and education have been so closely linked that post World War II, countries like Germany developed political and civic pedagogy to design education that would not result in a repeat of Nazi political tendencies. In fact, the Federal Office for Homeland Matters came into existence in 1952 as a national educational agency to oversee the curriculum. This body became the Federal Agency for Civic Education in 1963.

After the World War, the understanding was that individuals should be educated to ensure that violent political ideologies, such as Nazism, do not emerge. 

Politics and education

Even in the 21st century, curriculums remain political battlegrounds in South Asia. After the Taliban took over, Afghanistan began altering its school texts and deleted components that they viewed as conflicting with Islamic teachings and Afghan cultural values.

The Taliban also enforced a ban on girls’ education. Since then, UNICEF has been appealing to them to make education accessible to girls.

Afghanistan is not the only country to make the alterations. Bangladesh, after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, has started making changes in its textbooks. The revised syllabus mentions that ‘Ziaur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh on March 26, 1971, and on March 27, he made another declaration of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu’. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman also ceased to be mentioned as the ‘Father of the Nation’.

Bangladesh Awami League’s departure from power and the arrival of the rival political forces affected these changes. 

Alterations in school textbooks are going on in India as well, with reports showing the exclusion of Mughal and Delhi Sultanate history and the inclusion of new chapters on the Maha Kumbh and other topics.

A lot of deletions have also been taking place at the university level. Departments have been asked to remove references to politically sensitive topics, including conflict in Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine issue.

One of the grounds for such changes has been the rationalisation of syllabus, making the curriculum lighter for students. Textbook changes have taken place earlier as well. However, after 2005, textbooks were written in light of the new National Curriculum Framework, stressing the use of innovative pedagogies. 

The changes are starker when new political regimes significantly differ in ideology from their predecessors. Knowledge production is inherently a political endeavour and contestations will always remain. They are reflections of political dynamics playing out in society, beyond schools and colleges.

This is one of the top priorities for every political force, not merely because it allows them to establish their cognitive hegemony and, consequently, create a long-lasting support base for their politics but is also about victory over the contending oppositional politics.

In the process, textbooks have become a battleground, where contending political ideologies try to influence the thinking process of individuals from their childhood.

Amid this battleground of education policy and content making, we are ultimately talking of humans who are stratified and struggling against violence, unemployment and poverty. In this context, what defines the purpose of education and its vital components, such as curriculum and pedagogy, remains a critical task for any political establishment to address.

Frequent reorientations

It is also clear that the political interventions of the kind that we find in the curriculum have neither created employment opportunities nor have become a stable project of citizenship.

Undoubtedly, the idea of citizenship also changes from one political ideology to another. Within this changing political landscape, every few years, there is a cognitive instability that is created among students who are subjected to frequent reorientations about how one looks at the past and, therefore, the present.

While acknowledging that textbook-making is a political project, can any political ideology endorse an education that would legitimise religious strife, caste, or gendered violence?

There has to be a basic minimum that remains sacrosanct in this battlefield. The gains of centuries of human struggle for values or the achievements of scientific knowledge and rationality cannot be undone at the altar of short-term political expediency.``

(Ravi Kumar is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, South Asian University)