As we have seen, the explicit part of the Circular
issued by the West Bengal Government in 1989 in effect was that
there must be no negative reference to Islamic rule in India.
Although these were the very things which contemporary Islamic
writers celebrated, there must be absolutely no reference to the
destruction of the temples by Muslim rulers, to the forcible
conversion of Hindus, to the numerous other restrictions which were
placed on the Hindu population. Along with the Circular, the
passages which had to be removed were listed and substitute passages
were specified. The passages which were ordered to be deleted
contained, if anything, a gross understatement of the facts. On the
other hand, passages which were sought to be inserted contained
total falsehoods: that by paying jazia Hindus could lead "normal
lives" under the Islamic rulers!
A closer study of the textbooks which are today
being used under the authority of the West Bengal Government shows a
much more comprehensive, a much more diabolic design than that of
merely erasing the cruelties of Islamic rule.
Of course, there is no reference to those
cruelties. But in addition, the growth of the Aligarh Movement and
its objectives, the role of Sir Syed in founding this movement, the
role of the Muslim League, its close association with the British,
its espousal of the Two Nation doctrine -- all these are almost
entirely erased in the half a dozen books which teachers in Calcutta
have been so kind as to send.
It was only in one book, Sabhyatar Itihash by Dr
Atul Chandra Ray, Prantik, 1998, for Class VIII, that there was a
reference to the Muslim League, the Lahore Resolution, the Two
Nation theory, and Jinnah's "Direct Action". Even in this book the
only reference to Sir Syed Ahmad was one projecting him as a great,
progressive religious reformer: "All his life he struggled against
blind faith and tradition, conventional rituals, practices and
ignorance."
That he founded the Aligarh Movement, that he was
the original proponent of the Two Nation theory, that he exhorted
Muslims to stay away from the Congress, that he wrote essays
followed by books followed by essays to establish in the eyes of the
British how loyal Muslims had been through the 1857 Uprising, how
loyal they were and would always be to the British because of their
nature and their religion, that he gave very special
"interpretations" to passages from the Qur'an to establish that it
was the religious duty of Muslims to support and stand by the
British rulers -- to the point that if the British asked them to eat
pork, they were in religious-duty bound to do so in good cheer : not
a word on any of this.
Similarly, while Ram Mohan Roy is mentioned, while
Keshab Chandra Sen -- in whom Max Muller had seen such hope of
Christianizing India -- is mentioned, while Devendra Nath Tagore is
mentioned in this "History of Civilization", Bankim Chandra is not
mentioned! After all, for the constituency which our secular
Communists have been wooing, Bankim Chandra, being the author of
Bande Matram, of Ananda Math, is anathema. Many would think it
natural that as such "Histories of World Civilization" are written
in and for Bengal, Bengali personages -- including K. C. Sen --
should figure more prominently than reformers and leaders from
outside Bengal. But even they would be surprised -- though you would
not expect me to be surprised! -- by what the teachers point out in
regard to the most widely used textbook : that while Swami
Vivekananda gets one line, Karl Marx gets forty two!
In regard to our religion, the trick is threefold.
The textbooks denigrate religion, attributing to it the evils which
it serves their purpose to highlight. Second, in each of these
instances the examples they give are linked by them to Hinduism.
Third, among religions, Islam is always presented as the one,
progressive, emancipatory religion. Of course, the final
emancipation comes in the form of Soviet Revolution of 1917!
Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, West Bengal
Shiksha Adhikar, Calcutta, 1993 is a book for Class III. It has the
customary section on "Vyaktigat Sampatti o' Das Pratha" and it sets
out the customary Marxist exposition. The emergence of two classes,
rich and poor, is attributable to personal property and the profit
motive...; to augment its growth, one class of society fights
another class...; some lose out their property; others grab
everything of theirs'...; those who lose out are made prisoners and
employed as labourers; they become slaves; they are absolute
paupers....; those who make them work like this become their
malik...; gradually those maliks, without working,
start enjoying the fruits of the labour of slaves....; thus society
gets divided into rich and poor, owners and slaves; the rich and
owners and craftsmen class of people start fleecing these slaves;
not only are the latter denied their dues, they are also subjected
to atyachar (oppression)...; sometimes these poor and these
slaves used to rebel when they could no longer bear the atyachar; to
discipline them the rich created law, police and courts... A proper
preparation of the Class III child for abiding by law!
On the next page this account is merged into the
account of "rituals and ceremonies of society." The illustration on
the page shows Hindu pundits around a fire with the caption "Rishis
performing Yajna (religious rituals)". Having described the
emergence of two classes, the oppression of one class and its being
pushed into becoming slave labour, having described law, police and
courts as instruments of this oppression, the textbook now tells the
Class III student "these priests devised and got busy in creating
laws and rituals for worship. That is how scriptures were
written.
And they started teaching the children from these
scriptures, and they themselves became the teachers. Gradually they
established themselves at the top of the social ladder. That is how
they became leaders of society. And they became the allies of those
who were ruling the world." Not just the usual Marxist clap-trap,
the Marxist rendition of the Macaulay-design: make them ashamed of
the three things they revere -- their Gods, their scriptures, their
language, Sanskrit; and make them hate the one class which has been
charged with the task of continuing their religion and culture.
The theme is continued in and the association of
Hinduism with everything evil is deepened in the textbook, Itihash
o' Bhugol, Part II (West Bengal Vidyalaya Shiksha Adhikar, 1995,
Calcutta), meant for the Class IV students. On page 10 the standard
account is given – one which has been called into serious question
by current scholarship. Aryans come from the North West.... They
institute four castes, the Shudras are consigned to be the lowest
caste. They were the original inhabitants of this land, of dark
complexion... No right to education... That is on page 10.
On page 17 we learn of the great emancipatory
event. Mohammed is born. He establishes Islam... It creates a great
civilization, a civilization educationally, culturally advanced. It
establishes a vast Empire -- but because of fighting in various
parts this Empire yields to the emergence of different states. Two
pages later again: Mohammed is born..., a great Mahapurush..., his
religion Islam means "Peace". He taught all to give alms to the
poor, and to pay the worker his legitimate due. He taught, do not
cause pain or suffering to slaves, do not take interest on loans. He
stopped idolatry. These are the principal doctrines of Mohammed.
Many accepted Mohammed's religion... And then the insinuation: "All
great men have taught peace... but people have forgotten their
message and are quarreling and fighting. The rich instead of helping
the poor, duped them, and added to their own wealth. They indulge in
loot, blood-letting in the name of religion. When Jainism and
Buddhism spread in India, the Brahmin pundits saw danger. They
thought that if men did not follow the rituals, they may not obey
and care for them. Therefore, on the pretext of saving Hindu
religion and to maintain their hold on society, they became
desperate. They were helped by many kings. Thus the influence of
Jainism and Buddhism declined and the influence of Hinduism
increased." That is on page 20.
On pages 25 and 26 this superimposition is carried
further. The standard Marxist "thesis" is once again driven into the
child. Peasants exploited... surplus appropriated... his cattle,
land expropriated... suffering... progressive immiserisation day by
day... and then, "in the name of God, the pundits extracted gifts
for puja and festivals. The pundits became oppressive and began
living off the labour of others, becoming exploiters and oppressors.
They were helped by kings and landlords. Shudras, slaves and the
poor suffer most from religious persecution. This is how the
stratification of society between high and low started. Shudras
became untouchables but there was no restriction on exploiting their
services and every excuse was good enough for the men of higher
castes to exploit and persecute the Shudras.... The upper caste men
used to kill off Shudras and wipe out entire villages on any excuse
whatsoever."
And there is an illustration on the page to
reinforce the message into the child's mind. Captioned, Dharmiya
Utpidan, "Religious Persecution", it shows a man in a
bush-shirt, flogging a poor person with a whip -- in the foreground
is a Brahmin, in a dhoti, with a chutia, a
menacing frown, directing him to do so.
By predictable contrast, Itihash (Prachin), West
Bengal Shiksha Parishad, 1994, on page 94 gives an illustration of
the ruins of Nalanda, it says how important these seats of learning
were. But it is studiously silent on who it was that destroyed them!
After all, alluding to that would violate the Circular!
The Class III textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham
Bhag, at page 32, teaches the child, "With the emergence of personal
property one section has been depriving the other. The differences
between rich and poor have grown. Suffering has been created. The
downtrodden have lost all their rights. They have been subjected to
many indignities. Even now people are killing each other, even now a
man exploits a fellow-being, even now there are wars, battles. If
peace ever comes to this earth, if exploitation and oppression are
stopped, if every man can enjoy equal happiness and peace, then how
wonderful this earth would become."
This pattern -- of sowing anger against the state
of things and attributing that condition to the entities the
Communists want to target -- continues from one year to the next.
Itihash, Part III, (West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, 1996), after giving
the same sequence and "theses" of exploitation, of division of
society, of religion as a handmaiden of exploitation, turns to "the
emergence of new consciousness". An exploitative order... Brahmins
wielding great influence... Those of the working class, of Shudras
pushed down... no rights or dignity... Shudras not even to perform
religious rituals... Exploitation... Rebellion of Christian
slaves... Spartacus... Shakes the very foundation of the Roman
Empire... After 600 years of Christ, a new religious creed that
every man has equal rights, this religious creed was preached by
Hazrat Mohammed... Ideas of great men abandoned... Exploitation
continues. At last! Lenin, the Bolshevik Party... "This is how the
common man's revolt took place in November 1917 and an
exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] society of the working class was
established. Tagore visited Russia in 1930 and said that if he had
not visited Russia, he would have missed out on the most sacred
place of pilgrimage..." The Chinese Revolution... The Industrial
Revolution in England... Proprietors expropriate... Labour is
progressively immiserised... Country becomes rich but is controlled
by a few; the rest sink into misery, getting hardly anything, not
even two square meals a day... And then, on page 32, the Russian
Revolution: "In November 1917 before the end of the First World War,
the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire led by Lenin and his
Bolshevik Party staged the Revolution and uprooted the Czarist
Empire and thus established the first exploitation-less
[shoshan-mukt] rule of Workers and Peasants in Soviet Russia..."
And then the Second World War: Hitler, Japan and
Italy combined. Japan also was very greedy and ambitious, and
planned to set up an Empire in Asia. The Axis came into conflict
with "Britain, France and the American imperialists." "The issue,"
it tells the student, "was who will exploit and plunder the world.
That is how the Second World War started..." Bengal Famine... In
1941 Germany attacked Soviet Russia. The Russian people fought to
defend the Motherland and finally defeated Hitler's Germany. Bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... After the end of the Second World War,
the movement for freedom in colonies became vigorous.
Like this book, Sabhyatar Itihash, "The History of
Civilization," 1998, also presents the Russian Revolution as the
culmination of that evolution. A remarkable, comprehensive
revolution... While these books are published in 1995, 1998 etc.,
there is not a word in them about the purges under Stalin, about the
fact that under him at least 28 million Soviet citizens were killed,
nor of the fact that close to 60 million were killed under Maoist
rule in China, there is not a word of the slave labour camps of
these regimes. And, of course, there is not a word about what has
happened to the Soviet Union, to Eastern Europe since then, nor
about the leap which China has taken to abandon the bankrupt
Communist economic system.
Hence the design is not just what was set out in
that Circular -– to erase the evil that Islamic rulers heaped upon
India and Indians. It is to attribute evil to the religion of our
country, Hinduism; it is to present Islam as the great progressive
force which arose; it is to lament the fact that humanity did not
heed the teachings of progressive men like Mohammed -- till the
"remarkable and comprehensive" Russian Revolution of 1917!
To do anything but swallow and vomit this design, even to
document it, is to be communal, chauvinist,
fascist!