Admirable facts:
(source:: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/a-textbook-case-of-howlers-in-gujarat/article5726783.ece) These are not just mistakes, it’s a way of institutionalising History making or Academic Fascism. We can find a clear cut political bias while looking at GCERT. From Brahmanical history making to Discrimination on North east imbibed by cultural superiority and racial superiority along with Sang Parivar communal politics that is often expressed while describing Mughal history. It is more or less coincidence that these mistakes are complementary to sang-parivar ideology. For me it is hard to consider these mistakes as illiteracy. One classic example for Academic and cultural Fascism at present times can be visualised from the making of Sardar Vallabai Patels statue (named as Statue of unity). The world’s largest statue is expected to be spent on Rs 25,000 crores. The ludicrous aspect in the making of Patel statue is, Patel until his death was a pure congressman and the Gujarat government in 2006 has reject making Patel’s memorial on the school which he studied from First standard to Third standard only at cost of Rs25 lacks. But, why a pillar of Rs 25,000 crores being made by Narendra Modi or RSS in the name of Patel instead of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar? This 182meter tall pillar is made only to celebrate Patel’s conservatism and not for his nationalism or anti-colonial stand. He made Hyderabad and Manipur massacre possible for constructingpseudo nationalist unity scripted by upper-class savarna nationalists.Operation Polo, the code name of the Hyderabad Police Action was a military operation in September 1948 in which the Indian Armed Forces invaded the State of Hyderabad and overthrew its Nizam, annexing the state into the Indian Union, under the instruction of then Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Patel. Around 40,000 civilians were killed and majority of them were Muslims. Similar was the case of Manipur too. This enormous violence makes Patel the Iron Man of India. For RSS, Hyderabad Massacre was a communal fulfilment and Manipur Massacre a racial fulfilment. Patel’s typical conservative Hinduism is being celebrated in the name of statue of unity. In future this Congress Deputy prime minister might be counted as a BJP minister!! looking at the pulping of Wendy Doniger’s book ‘’The Hindus-an alternative history’’ which was due to Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (SBAS), a RSS outfit’s civil sue against the book. Even before Additional District Magistrate on Saket pronounced a judgment on the matter, Penguin publishers entered into an “amicable settlement” with SBAS and agreed to withdraw all copies of Wendy Doniger’s book. The Plaintiff Dinanath Batra was also instrumental in getting A.K Ramanujan’s essay “300 Ramayanas” withdrawn from Delhi University History Syllabus In 2008. This collaboration between capitalist and communal forces was due to the advocacy of “hurting religious sentiments”. This constructed stinging is a way to control liberal voices or freedom of expression. What was Wendy Doniger’s real crime? She tried to narrate the history of myths and showing us the way in which myth is constructed through history. SBAS and Right wing forces were stopping us from hearing substitute history of myths. This act of controlling knowledge production, from A.K Ramanujan’s essay “300 Ramayanas to pulping of Wendy Doniger’s is a method of institutionalizing frameworks for History making and an Authoritarian remark of India’s democracy. This should be called as Academic Fascism. -Ashique Ali T Bibilography: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/a-textbook-case-of-howlers-in-gujarat/article5726783.ece Deshabhimani weekly, 5 january 2014;tommorow nehru will also become a statue,K.E.N;page 18-25 http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/in-their-bad-books/article5698879.ece
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June 2016
AuthorsAshique Ali T |