Most effective way of destroying people is to deny and obliterate their understanding of their history. – George Orwell
In today’s transnational world, a sustainable national security policy cannot be achieved through national capabilities alone. Sustainable national security instead rests on three pillars:
• A multi-sum security principle based on justice at all levels, multi-lateralism and multi-dimensionality.
• Symbiotic realism in international relations.
• Trans-civilizational synergy.
India has been subject to unhealthy and false indoctrination, through formal education, for too long. For three generations, since Independence, Indians have been conditioned not to take pride in their civilization and to feel inferior to anything firangi. This self-deprecating nature has caused untold harm to India’s self-reliance, domestic industry and national security.
While education plays an important role in the security and longevity of a culture and a nation, for decades it was used as an invisible and seemingly harmless tool for altering the social fabric and national destiny. This is no less true for India than for any nation in the world.
Knowledge in Ancient India
India, arguably, is the earliest fount of knowledge for mankind. Being the first to develop a scientific and highly advanced language, Sanskrit, India had a head start in pursuit and documentation of knowledge. Centuries before Latin and Abrahamic languages evolved, India already had treatises on astronomy/astrology (Jyotish Shashtra), medicine and surgery (Sushruta Samhita of Ayurveda), meditation and philosophy (Upanishads), religion, society and ceremony (Vedas), health (Yoga Sutra of Patanjali), Sex (Kaam Sutra of Vatsyayan), etc. It is another matter the West gives credit for the discovery of blood-circulation to Dr William Harvey, good 2300 years after Sushruta Samhita, a treatise on advanced surgery, was written in India. Similarly, Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with discovering the solar system, about 2000 years after Panchangam in India was accurately predicting eclipses and the rise-and-set times of all planets of the solar system.
This is the negative power of education. Facts can be distorted and taught to a young mind and the distorted information becomes knowledge and belief. While most inventions and discoveries in the world were done in the old-world civilisations of India, China, Peru, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the world, dominated by Western education, has given their credit to Greece, Rome, Europe and England. If Printing Press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440, how were copies of Vedas and Bible reproduced in large numbers in ancient times. If Igor Sikorsky invented the helicopter, how did Ravan abduct Sita in an Udan-Khatola and fly across the sea to Lanka? History, always written by the victor, is the biggest casualty of distorted knowledge.
Education in Post-Independence India
The tragedy of India has been two-fold. First, she was ruled by uneducated and cruel invaders from the West and North-West for over 800 years. During this time India’s culture, education and religion, especially Hinduism, was ruthlessly crushed. Second, post-Independence, she was ruled for five decades by a partisan Congress Party that craftily camouflaged its pro-Muslim agenda, under the innocuous garb of secularism. Nehru, a devout Muslim, adopting a Hindu name prefixed with the hugely misleading title of Pandit, comprehensively duped the Hindus. The anti-Hindu agenda in the field of education is evident from the handling of the Ministry of Education since Independence (see names of Education Ministers listed below).
This low-profile ministry, helmed by Muslims or pliant Congressmen, chipped away at the syllabi and content of education, with special emphasis on history, to blur if not fully erase Hindu history, culture and heritage of India. This era of Congress dominance had the enormous advantage of no TV, no internet, no social-media and no mobile cameras to monitor, challenge or uncover the government’s activities. A subdued, illiterate and poor Indian populace, subjects rather than citizens empowered with suffrage, was easy to mislead. India’s education indoctrinated the young mind about the greatness of Muslim rulers at the cost of India’s true history. This was further complemented by naming roads and institutions after Muslim kings and personalities, ignoring the claims of far superior Hindu personages, especially in New Delhi – the showpiece of India’s republic. With roads named after Mughal kings, we have Tughlaqabad, Faridabad, Ferozeshah Kotla, Turkman Gate, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Hauz Khas, Wazirpur, Sikandra and tombs of all Muslim rulers but nary a memorial to Hindu greats. The situation in other cities of India is not remarkably different. The Indian mind was continuously bombarded with Muslim dominance. This complemented the biased education received in classrooms by Indian children. Modern India does not know any history other than that of Muslim rulers and the Nehru-Gandhi family. Even other Congress greats viz Netaji Bose, Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri etc have been systemically ignored.
Education Policy in India – 1947 to 2020
Nehruvian doctrine relied more on “un-education” as it was easy to subvert uneducated masses than educated citizens. So, the inconspicuous Education Ministry was left in the hands of Muslim ministers to subvert India’s history, glorify Muslims and the Nehru-Gandhi family at the expense of reality. The formative decades of India’s independence, 1947 to 1968, India did not have any national policy on education. It only had an agenda!
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad 15 Aug 1947 22 Jan 1958
K. L. Shrimali 22 Jan 1958 31 Aug 1963
Humayun Kabir 1 Sep 1963 21 Nov 1963
Mohamed Ali Currim Chagla 21 Nov 1963 13 Nov 1966
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed 14 Nov 1966 13 Mar 1967
Triguna Sen 16 Mar 1967 14 Feb 1969
VKRV Rao 14 Feb 1969 18 Mar 1971
Siddhartha Shankar Ray 18 Mar 1971 20 Mar 1972
Saiyid Nurul Hasan 24 Mar 1972 24 Mar 1977
Indira Gandhi announced the first National Policy on Education in 1968 (NPE 1968), which proposed equal educational opportunities for national integration and cultural and economic development. It prescribed compulsory education up to the age of 14, as stipulated by the Constitution of India. It outlined the “three language formula” of English, Hindi and one regional language. It called for Hindi as a link language for all Indians and encouraged Sanskrit as an essential part of India’s culture and heritage. It proposed education budget as six percent of the GDP.
In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi introduced a new National Policy on Education (NPE 1986). It called for removal of disparities in educational opportunity for Indian women, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC). NPE 1986 launched “Operation Blackboard” to improve primary schools nationwide and expanded the open university system with the Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Alas, none of the objectives were even pursued, let alone achieved. The education budget never exceeded 4% in five decades. Both NPE 1968 and NPE 1986 were a façade to give more time to fulfill the real agenda of Congress to decimate India’s ancient culture.
NPE 1986 was modified in 1992 by PV Narasimha Rao and in 2005 by Manmohan Singh, based on the “Common Minimum Programme” of UPA. A common entrance examination on all-India basis for professional and technical courses – JEE and AIEEE at national level and SLEEE at state level were introduced. This nationalised admission standards and eliminated multiplicity of entrance examinations.
New Education Policy, 2020 (NEP 2020)
On 29 July 2020, prime minister Narendra Modi approved a new National Education Policy, 2020 to introduce several changes to the existing Indian education system.
NEP 2020 has not come a moment sooner. There was a crying need for reformation of the deviously designed education system imposed on India since 1947. India’s education system, while apparently meeting India’s Constitution did little to achieve its goals. The Constitution 86th Amendment, making education a fundamental right and the Right to Education Act, 2009, making free and compulsory education to all children between 6 and 14 years, along with the NPE 1968, NPE 1986 with alterations in 1992 and 2005 have all created a façade of successive governments’ intent to boost education while effectively doing nothing about it. Muslim and Christian educational institutions, like their places of worship, were exempted from any government influence but Hindu institutions were not. Government schools and colleges, despite 70% Central funding, have remained without fundamental infrastructure and qualified teachers. Trillions of rupees appropriated for education have been siphoned off since 1947. Private educational institutions have become commercial hubs “selling” education to the highest bidders with tuition fees running into lakhs for kindergarten classes.
NEP 2020 is a broad guideline and advisory in nature for the states, institutions and schools to implement. It focuses on the architecture and financial structure of the education system, ridding it of malaises that have transformed education from a service to a commercial business. It provides a comprehensive framework for elementary to higher education as well as vocational training, in both rural and urban India. No one shall be forced to study any language and that the medium of instruction shall not mandatorily be shifted from English to regional languages. It increases state expenditure on education from 4% to 6% of GDP.
Challenge For the Government
NEP 2020 is a long overdue step in the right direction not just for education, for nation-building itself. The government faces many challenges in implementing this ambitious policy. Else, it shall be another in the line of numerous Congress/UPA initiated policies created only to meet Constitutional obligations. The first challenge is allocating 6% of GDP ie Rs 1400 crore annually, by 2019 figures. With the GDP increasing 5% to 7% annually, education funding should proportionately increase. Experts feel this is adequate to resuscitate the sick education sector. India’s education infrastructure should rival the best in the world by 2025.
The bigger challenge, however, is to correct the doctored and maliciously altered medieval and modern history of India. This is where there is bound to be vociferous opposition and rebellion from vested groups, mainly the Congress, the communists and the Muslim parties. Their painstakingly erected edifice of Muslim and socialist superiority over India’s indigenous culture, history and way-of-life shall be protected tooth-and-nail. Indeed, certain bitter truths to India’s history cannot be brushed aside; Muslim and British rule over India for nearly 800 years and the easy fallibility, infighting and greed of Hindu Rajas are too true to be ignored. However, the existence of bigger and more successful Hindu dynasties with longer reigns – Guptas, Mauryas, Cholas, Pallavas, Ahoms, Marathas, Sikhs etc also need to be included in the curricula. Along with their numerous positive contributions to modern India, the misdeeds and corruption of the foreign invaders and the Nehru-Gandhi family must also be taught. History education needs to be balanced, not artificially skewed.
This correction in India’s history syllabus, from primary to higher education, shall be the biggest challenge of the government in implementing NEP 2020. If the government skirts this issue, NEP 2020 shall just be a financial and architectural reform, not a factual one. Let us hope, the government has the stomach and tools for this gigantic surgical strike.
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