Teesta Setalvad’s note written on September 7th, 2005 addressed to CABE critiques its processes and its recommendations.

The Minister for Human Resources Development, All Education Ministers from the States and All Other Members of CABE

I would, like at the outset like to begin by quoting in part the address of the Hon’ble Minister yesterday where he had quoted in full the communication to the NCERT dated July 21, 2004 that entrusted the NCERT with the specific mandate to formulate the National Curriculum Framework 2005. We meet here today to discuss the outcome of this effort which morally and ethically must also include an honest and transparent assessment of whether or not the mandate given to the NCERT has been truthfully followed. The NCF periodically is supposed to review the process of the creation of a national system of education, in terms of democratic access and sound democratic content.

I quote, “The present curriculum framework was released four years ago, it is time to initiate the process of review and renewal of the curriculum….4. While undertaking the review, you may kindly ensure that the processes as laid down or that have evolved over a period of time, are not violated. You are aware of the criticism regarding the short-circuiting and inadequacies of procedures followed during the finalisation of the earlier review….5. The textbooks of the NCERT have drawn serious academic criticism during the last few years. You are already in the process of handling the controversy regarding the History Books. While undertaking the present review you may like to address the question of how the books emanating from a new curriculum framework could be insulated from such distortions….(burden point 6)…7. The NCFSE should always be in harmony with the idea of India as enshrined in its Constitution. It could be worthwhile to keep reminding everyone associated with the review of the following words in which the noble idea of India has been given in the Preamble to the Constitution”

Friends, I do not in this august assembly need to reiterate that the august Principles that the Hon’ble Minister was referring to are justice, social, economic and political, liberty, equality of status and of opportunity.

At the outset a searching question needs to be asked, has the new NCF followed this fundamental Constitutional Mandate?

Has the NCF in its present form emerged without an inadequacy of procedure that the previous regime’s NCF followed or has it also short-circuited dissent by a lack of transparency in mode of procedure?

Has the NCF 2005 even addressed the question of severe and serious criticisms of the former regime under NCF 2000’s textbooks? Do we even want to remember at this historic juncture what the previous regime had succeeded in destroying when we wish to revive and reconstruct India’s national educational policy?

Here I would like to remind this august gathering, lest we relapse into amnesia that the earlier NCERT textbooks resulting out of the NCF 2000 that was a singular departure from the Idea of India and the ideals enshrined in not just the preamble but the entire Indian Constitution which also reflect universal values of human rights, equity and true democracy tried to destroy this very India of India.

Blatant distortions and even hatreds were sought to be pushed through for not simply narrow political gain but to enable a slow insidious reconstruction in the public mind and public domain of what India is and what it should be. Exclusions and denials of rights and liberties of religious minorities, Dalits, tribals and all women were a singular part of that agenda. Part of this reconstruction included what this NCERT textbook had to say on history: The origin of Buddhism and Jainism are explained in the following words: Following the philosophical tradition of Upanishads and six philosophies in Hinduism quest for salvation through knowledge continued. This gave rise to Jainism and Buddhism.’ This historic distortion is not simply a question co-opting the origins of faiths into Hinduism. At the core is the desire to deny the acute and continuing discriminations that lace Indian Hindu society, driven by caste denials and hierarchies.

Sire, and Friends I would like to suggest that given this stark historic context, outlined for us in Shri Arjun Singh’s letter yesterday, the NCF 2005 is a confused document that fails to live up to the historic mandate entrusted to it. By emphasizing and re-emphasising only one aspect at point 6 of the letter of 11-7-2004 “the lessening of burden” aspect mentioned, the NCF 2005 has consciously avoided the critical issues of structural denials to large sections of our population any form of education (so where is the curriculum??) that have not simply been perpetuated over the last 58 years but have sharply grown through the years after 1992 with the withdrawal of the State from its basic Constitutional Mandate –to ensure UEE to each and every Indian child, regardless of gender, caste or community.

The NCF 2005 is confused, with no direction and systematic approach. It avoids the harsh reality on the ground and the ideological erosion that outfits and organizations that are antithetical to the Indian Constitution have successfully made over the past two decades that was also the periods when the Indian state chose to withdraw from its basic constitutional mandate of providing good quality, free and compulsory education to all.

What can the NCF 2005 do to ensure equity in access across class, caste community and gender of a curricular framework? As the Delhi Governments Comments on the NCF state and I refer to page 48-49 “boring learning” and not “burdened learning” is the problem that children face. Moreover as rightly pointed out “this NCF 2005 barely touches upon poverty (and discrimination be it based on caste, community or gender) and does not encourage children to wonder how a country of millions of tones of buffer food grain stock can also have millions of hungry people…The Neff’s attitude on the textbook is vague and dangerous. For millions of Indian school children who have battered and leaking classrooms minus a blackboard to learn from, for the IPS officer from Apti village in Kalyan (that was submerged in 60 feet of water) if he did not official texts to pass the open IPS exam, he would not have achieved his dream. He managed because there were texts and a formal system of education, bruised as it may be.

The overemphasis in the NCF 2005 on decentralization and diffused local knowledge is downright dangerous. It is no wonder that the BJP-NDA ruled opposition states have merely a problem that yoga is not included. They know that if implemented in the current form, the NCF 2005 would be a continued invitation to dubious, hugely-funded non-governmental organizations to continue to operate freely in the area of mass education and even draw government funds where politically sympathetic regimes exist. So while the Ministry of HRD directly initiates a move to stop funding of outfits like the Ekal foundation who run Ekal Vidyalayas because of the curricular framework that they are adopting that is downright unconstitutional, and while of the CABE Commiteees on regulatory Mechanisms actually has recommended scrutiny of all texts and textual materials being taught in all schools, the NCF fights shy of acknowledging the huge corrosion that a combination of privatization (driven by neo-liberal policies and a withdrawal of the State from education) and downright communal and sectarian schemes and agendas in education.

The error in fundamentals in the NCF 2005 (that will be dealt with by me in a separate note) apart from those outlines above also mean that inequities due to caste, class, community and gender are not treated as violations of basic human rights and dignity but cloaked in syrupy phases such as “minority sensibilities” etc. This is downright dangerous for a rational national curriculum. For instance in the five major concerns outlined in the forward to the NCF 2005 (pg vi) not one reflects the non-negotiable Constitutional right of every Indian to have access to quality education based on the principles of egalitarianism, non-discrimination and therefore, democracy. The distinct approach that hopes to convert itself into national policy appears to be to offer the disadvantaged poorest of India’s poor sops and comforts but not the basis inalienable right to a good, free and quality education. As stated by me in my dissenting member’s report on Regulatory Mechanisms, the story of India’s failures on the education front is also a woeful tale of selective denials to certain sections of the politically demonized and denied sections. Adivasis, women, Muslims and Dalits have together suffered these systemic denials. The largest private player in education that used to be the Church is today the RSS’ driven Vidya Bharati or the VHP inspired Ekal Vidyalaya. Within the minorities, a combination of brutal assault and resultant ghettoisation has meant that the madrassa and the private minority Institution –that by the way also needs to be monitored in terms of adherence to Constitutional principles---is today the major supplier of education. But what we deliberately want to fail to see, it appears that all official and other studies show, that where there is a good quality State Education, no Muslim parent wants to send his or her child to a madrassa. By failing to state and draw from this reality we are also contributing to the further demonisation of the ordinary Muslim citizen who is being denied a Constitutional stake in quality education.

The link between access to all and quality of education needs to be articulated sharply in the NCF 2005 if it claims to be a National Policy of Education that comes after Huge and Deliberate Aberrations have Used Hatred within the Educational Sector. Our schools and textbooks have been used as laboratories for hate and division. Why are we today historically shying away from outlining this historic moment?

I would also like at this stage comment on the rationale behind reviving CABE and the democratic mandate that this august forum enjoys which must also reflect transparency and a respect for dissent. Processes followed within CABE vis-à-vis the NCF 2005 and also in the one CABE Committee on Regulatory Mechanisms of which I was a dissenting member do not inspire any commitment to the ideals of democracy and democratic dissent.

The essence of democracy is not the brute majority vote but the voice of the last single dissenting member. Be it Gandhi or Ambedkar, thinkers and philosophers who also had the commitment to reach out to and organize millions of our country’s men and women did not play lip service to these ideals. That is what I fear the CABE Committee consultations are referring to. I wish to remind people that the processes followed in the CABE Committee’s and vis-à-vis the NCF 2005 are not conducive to a renewal of genuine democracy. Indicators:

• Even today the NCERT’s website does not reflect the dissenting voice on the NCF 2005. Supportive articles from the media applauding the NCF 2005 and dubbing any democratic opposition to it as fascist (sic) are pasted there but not strong ethical dissenters such as eminent thinkers Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib. Is this genuine debate and democracy?

• As CABE we question the basis on which State wise consultations were held. Some of us who had, at the last meeting urged that we should be included as also other voices in state-wise SCERT consultations were deliberately kept out. I have corresponded with the Maharashtra SCERT and the Gujarat SCERT and neither has invited us or other dissenting voices. Gujarat did not hold any consultations at all and in this context I should like to say that the NCERT should have made serious efforts in opposition states to hold consultations. This was also not done.

• Thirdly, members seriously concerned about the privatisation in education, we should know what status the AZIM PREMJI Foundation enjoys in the overall scheme of things? Is it authorised by the GOI? The HRD? NCERT? Or CABE? Certainly not the latter. Similarly a host of large and small organizations/groups all over India who petitioned the NCERT to enable them to hold consultations on the NCF 2005 were denied whereas one such formation was given a substantial amount to hold a seminar. CABE must know and recommend what policies, processes and procedures the NCERT follows in ensuring that the dissenting voice, and through it real debate is reflected before the NCF emerges. Or else this once more boils down to a lack of transparency and functioning.

• Similarly, I would endorse Shri Sadgopal’s views on the manner in which minutes do not reflect what we members have said and also that dissenting documents are not circulated. I would urge a correction in the June 2005 minutes vis-à-vis my comments therein. Also I would urge and request that all documents, including letters, minutes, agendas, and dissenting notes relating to all NCERT committees and the NCF 2005 be officially published and displayed on the website. Some of us members have written strong dissenting notes which we have requested be published. So far this has not happened. A close friend and renowned academic, Madhu Prasad has shown by her research of the 1882 Education Commission that published along with the officially accepted documents, were all the dissenting notes and memorandum, even by 80 citizens written in expressing their views. Surely we must do better than the British!

• Finally given these fundamental issues I would urge that we have no way but to recommend a drastic and serious re-working of the NCF 2005. It should not and must not be passed in its current form. A representative committee, that has within it members who have taken dissenting and critical positions must re-look at the entire NCF 2005 in a time bound manner and place it before CABE. The rush to evolve a new syllabus and write new texts cannot and must not be used as an excuse to pass a half-baked document that could in fact fester dangerous trends. Caution and thoroughness must guide our approach.

I would like also to reserve my right to send in a written note with detailed critiques/ amendments of the NCF 2005 that I shall do within a week.

Teesta Setalvad
Independent Nominated Member

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