Tavleen Singh writes: Time to get beyond history books

Indian Express

20-07-2025

Let me begin with an admission. I am not averse to school history books being revisited or revised by historians from the RSS school of history. For far too long, they were written by dogmatic leftists who chose in the name of secularism to exalt the 'great Moghuls', and diminish Hindu rulers and their often-magnificent achievements. The books they wrote were mostly so boring that people like me, who now read history books with fascination, ended up asleep in history class. In the moments that I was awake, I did notice that there were three periods of history that were taught: ancient India, Moghul and British.
What I learned about pre-Islamic India was so little that it was not until I was an adult that I heard of the mighty south Indian dynasties and discovered the wonders of Hindu civilisation. It was on holidays in Indonesia and Cambodia that I saw the extent to which India's civilisation had influenced language, culture and religion across the east. Angkor Wat and Borobudur left me stunned by their beauty and scale. So, if there is a bit of revisionist history being introduced into school textbooks, I have no problem at all. The Moghuls did tear down temples and impose taxes on us idol-worshippers, and the truth about these things should never have been concealed. Not from Hindu children or Muslim.
My problem is that I wish some of those leading this new history movement would spare time to examine the current state of our schools and the abysmal quality of teaching. I have said before in this column that when I travel to a village, almost the first thing I try to see is the local school. And the truth is that not the best of these schools would be considered a real school by modern international standards.
In the best government schools, there are at least classrooms with desks and teachers, but you need only spend 10 minutes in one of these classes to discover that teaching methods are primitive. Children are taught not to think or develop a love of learning, but to learn by rote. Just enough to pass their examinations. They usually leave school with basic literacy instead of a real education, so they cannot compete with children who go to good private schools. They are, nevertheless, the lucky ones.
In the worst schools, especially those that have been built for Dalit and Adivasi children, there are no classrooms, no desks, no textbooks and often only a token teacher who teaches all the subjects they are meant to study. These teachers are very well paid by rural standards, but they usually live outside the village and are rarely available after school hours. Children who might not have fully understood what they were taught can turn to nobody for help because often, their parents are illiterate.
My point is that instead of wallowing eternally in the glories of our glorious past, it is time to address the problems of today. What difference will the new history textbooks make, if most schoolchildren are unable to read them? Another problem I have with the current exercise in rewriting history books is that they seem mostly to draw attention to the evils perpetuated by the Moghuls and other Muslim rulers. Is this just another deliberate attempt to make Hindu children hate Muslims? The British Raj did many bad things that were whitewashed in school textbooks, why is this not also being reviewed?
We now have a new Nalanda University to remind us of the legendary Buddhist institution that once existed here and was destroyed by a barbaric Muslim invader. But why is it that nobody has noticed the decay that infects most other universities? Anyone who has visited the great universities in the West knows that we do not have a single great university in India. This is why some of our best teachers have become academic refugees in countries that have real universities. This is why Indian students who can afford it go abroad for higher studies. Why is it that in the higher echelons of the RSS nobody has noticed yet that instead of wallowing in our 'glorious past' we should be trying to create a glorious present?
When Narendra Modi put Smriti Irani in charge of education in his first term as prime minister, I was a loyal Modi Bhakt. So, although I was taken aback by this startling choice, I tried to go and talk to the minister to persuade her that one reason why higher education was in the doldrums was because of too much interference by politicians and high officials. I told her that a bold and important move would be to disband the University Grants Commission. She paid no attention, and this obsolete institution continues to micromanage the affairs of universities to their detriment. A Higher Education Commission of India is meant to replace it soon, but universities do not need more control but less. Why do we need officials poking their noses into the realms of academia at all?
Speaking of political interference in education, may I say that the Home Minister is completely wrong in trying to discourage Indians from learning English. It is the lingua franca of today and Indians must continue to learn it because the advantages that they have when they venture out into the world are beyond measure.