Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

601 Pages·2003·1.331 MB·English

by  Yvette Claire Rosser

Copyright
by
Yvette Claire Rosser
2003
The Dissertation Committee for Yvette Claire Rosser
Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Curriculum as Destiny:
Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

Committee:

O. L. David, Jr. Supervisor

Sherry Field

Zena Moore

Gail Minault

Rodney Moag
Curriculum as Destiny:
Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

by
Yvette Claire Rosser, B.A., M.A.

Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin
August 2003
Dedication
With gratitude and respect to the two women who gave me life and continue to
nurture me with love and wisdom:
My Dearest Mother, Janine Smets Randal, Ph.D., from Brussles, Belgium
&
Beloved Shrimati Siddhi Ma-ji, from Kainchi Dham, Nainital, India.
And also to my sister, who supported me through the travails of graduate school :
Danielle Rosser, DVM
And especially to my three children who bore the brunt of this long academic
journey with patience and love:
Krystina Shakti
Jai Hanuman
Amar Josef
I would also like to mention Florence Klein and Frank Hutton, Raman Srinivasan,
Susan Raja-Rao, my best friends, who have given me strength and determination
and the closeness of family.
Finally, from my deepest heart I thank and honor:
Param Pujaya 1008 Shri Shri Shri Neem Karoli Baba Maharaj-ji,
who in 1973 advised me to go to graduate school
Acknowledgements
I have many people to thank. I thank Gail Minault for her friendship and
for her numerous letters of recommendation as well as her copious comments
about this dissertation. I thank Robert Hardgrave who also wrote many letters on
my behalf and who was an inspiration to me. Rodney Moag has been a source of
wisdom and support and I am grateful. The chair of my dissertation committee, O.
L. Davis, Jr. counseled me, wrote letters of recommendation, and nominated me
for funding that allowed me to continue my work. He has been supportive and
concerned, patient and understanding. Zena Moore and Sherry Field have been
enthusiastic and kind and I am grateful that they were on my committee. I would
also like to mention in loving memory, JoAnn Sweeney, who took me under her
wing at a crucial time. I hope part of JoAnn’s great spirit lives on in me.
Many people in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India helped me:
In Pakistan, I am particularly indebted to: Arifa Sayida, who is my heart,
and Mubarak Ali and Rabina Saigol. I respect Dr. Inayatullah, Tariq Rahman and
Rehanna and their two wonderful children. Thanks also to Bilal Farooq. Special
thanks to my “Punjabi Devi” Rukiya Jaffrey and her daughter Zahar, who
translated the Urdu textbooks. Fond remembrances for Nafisa Hoodbhoy and
Javed Bhutto. Sheemeen Abbass, now my friend in Austin, helped me in Pakistan.
In Sindh, where a little bit of my heart always remains, I have a list of
brothers and sisters whom I must mention. Inayat Magsi, my true brother and his
wife Shaheeda. Lal Gurubaxani, thank you. Rakhsandar Mahar, sisters forever.
Saghir Shaikh and my family in Karachi, Fayaz and Samina, et al. Thanks also to
Jamal Sheikh and Mars, Alta Md. Bhambhro, Jam Saqi, Rahim Bux Jaffri, Noor-
Light-of-My-Life-u-Nisa Ghanghro and her dear Mir, and Imdad Chandio—who
turned me on to Sindh.
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In Bangladesh I would like to thank my friend and teacher Dr.
Annisuzzama, everyone’s favorite professor. Very special thanks to Iftekhar Iqbal
“Shefa’ my very sincere translator. And best wishes to Dr. Ratan Lal
Chakraborty. Thanks to Dr. K.M. Mohisin, for all his help. Thanks also to Sona
Bari and Shahid. And especially to Chandan Ikram Ahmed and his mom, Hamida
Banu, and family-- Sajeeda, Faraida and Nurul Haq, Farooq and Ratna and
Chanchal. And at the CDRB, Mr. Md. Enayat Karim, Dr. Shelly, his brother
“Sher-e-Dhaka”, and especially Sarwar, my dear. And thanks to Kishwar Kamal
for sustaining me… and so many others. Joy Bangla!
In India, which is like home to me, I have many people to thank, along
with Purnima at the AIIS off in Delhi. First of all Arjun Dev and Indira Arjun
Dev, who are my friends, though we don’t necessarily agree about all the issues, I
appreciate them and am in their debt. And to Krishna Kumar who counseled me
to whom I provided textbooks from Pakistan. To K.S. Lal for several informative
and inspiring interviews, may he rest in peace and may his books finally,
posthumously be added to university reading lists. Love to Madhu Kishwar who
is a great human being and a friend. First and foremost dunda pranam and love to
Bhaiya Narottam Das Kapoor in Benares. And in Delhi, Mrs. Sharma and family.
Remembrances to my family in Kainchi Dham, Nainital, also Vinod Joshi who
brings light to my soul. For showing me “alternative” ways to see India, thanks to
Devindra Svaroop-ji and Sandhya and Meenakshi Jain. I also owe a great deal to
Stanley Berly for inspiration and also Vijay Ganapa. I am very grateful to Mr.
Rishi Kumar Mishra of the Observer Research Foundation, and his wife Renuka
for understanding and supporting me. The last person I need to thank is the most
important, my true dost, Raman Srinivasan.

vi
Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh

Publication No._____________

Yvette Claire Rosser, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2003

Supervisor: O. L. Davis, Jr.

This dissertation investigates the political, social, and religious influences
on curriculum policy and social studies textbooks. It highlight the importance of
historiography in the creation and transmission of national ideologies. This study
focuses on three nations of the Indian Subcontinent, India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh, which share thousands of years of history, but who after 1947 have
entertained distinct, often opposing visions of the past. In this context, historical
interpretations, often characterized by omission, elision, and embellishment, may
become standardized narratives used as justification for ethnic violence and
military brinkmanship. The civic imperative to create patriotic citizens finds a
malleable, teleological tool in the social studies. This study seeks to understand
the sources of contentiousness which characterize the relationships between these
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often hostile nations where textbooks may be used as a site for negatively
“othering” their neighbors.
The first section deals with the history of education in the Subcontinent
and background information about the research. The second section looks at the
three countries in the Subcontinent, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. A brief
conclusion attempts to tie them all together.
History textbooks are narrated with the intent of developing students into
patriotic, productive citizens. Examples from state-sponsored textbooks can
illustrate the appropriation of history to reinforce national ideologies. When
history is seen as a tool to mold a nation's youth, interpretations of historical
events are often manipulated in response to current events, as heroes become
villains across the borders of neighboring countries, and opposing political parties
within nations vie to control the grand narrative of the nation state.

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Table of Contents

Introduction...........................................................................................................1

Nationalism: Something to Die For..................................................................3

The Sub-Continental Divide..........................................................................5

Chapter One: Historical Revisionism in Global Perspective..............................12
History Textbooks ‘R US....................................................................................14
History Wars and the Paparazzi.........................................................................19
Chapter Two: Research Assumptions and Caveats.............................................31
Background Discussion and Transferability of Concepts...................................34
“History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.”.................................36
Colonial Precedent: The Communalization of Textbook Narratives...................38
Uprooting the “Beautiful Tree”..........................................................................44
"Learn English and lose your humanity."........................................................................................55
Chapter Three: The Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies............................68
Pak Studies: Propaganda of a ‘Failed State’.......................................................68
Light of God/Love of Plunder Schism: Dichotomies of Discourse.......................74
Eliding and Ellipsing: Victim or Villain..........................................................................................78
The Akbar Aurangzeb Axis...............................................................................................................84
Whose History? Whose Nation?.......................................................................................................95
Stitching Caps and Staging Coups....................................................................106
Hegemonic Hindustan: Pakistan’s Significant Other..................................................................110
The Goal: Complete Islamization.....................................................................116
Kashmir: A Vehicle for the Creation and Transmission of Nationalism................................128
Omission of Transmission: The Emergence of Bangladesh......................................................132
Investigating the Politics of Curriculum Reform..............................................136
Chapter Four: Mukti Bahini to Jihad: Evolution of Historiography in
Bangladesh..........................................................................................................139
‘As the Pendulum Swings’................................................................................143
Textbooks and Popular Memory......................................................................153
Cultural Nationalism versus Pan-Islamism...................................................................................158
Urban Legends and The Rewriting of History.............................................................................160
The Bengalees vs. the Bangladeshis..............................................................................................161
Who Declared Independence?..........................................................................166
Subtleties of Distortion.....................................................................................................................174
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From a Vision of Humanism to the Agenda of Islamism...........................................................187
The Unstable Story of the Nation.....................................................................195
November 7, A Tale of Two Tales.................................................................................................202
Political Overdose............................................................................................215
The Return of Rao Farman Ali........................................................................................................220
Bangladesh: The Ghosts of the Generals..........................................................223
Hindus and the ‘Pollution of the Political Air’.............................................................................234
Bangladesh: A Tale That Can’t Be Told...........................................................243
Whither Contemporary History in Bangladeshi Textbooks?.....................................................247
Bangladeshi Identity and Textbooks..............................................................................................253
The Battle of the Begums.................................................................................................................257
Student Politics..................................................................................................................................261
Chapter Five: India: Rewriting History in the Headlines...............................265
Conflicts and Controversies: No Middle Ground in Indian Historiography.....265
Agency, Hegemony, and Risky Stances on the Road Less Taken............................................267
Woe to be Saffron..............................................................................................................................273
The Hinduization of JNU.................................................................................................................277
Aryans and Ancestral Angst: The Obligation of Identity Construction............280
Prelude to Controversy: Romila Thapar and 1977 Textbook Recall........................................294
Duel of the Dons: A Central Debate on the Fringe............................................300
The Power of Silence: Rejecting History for Personal Salvation.............................................306
Tegh Bahadur Singh versus NCERT .............................................................................................314
The New NCERT Textbooks: “It’s Our Turn Now”.........................................325
Values Education: The Verdict.......................................................................................................329
High Court Judgment: Vedas Are Not Saffron............................................................................339
From the Drain Pipe Inspector’s View..........................................................................................352
“Vituperative, Venom-Spewing” … VHP....................................................................................360
Back to the Books: The Scuffle Over Values Education............................................................374
The Questionable Textbooks in Question.........................................................384
Battle of the Booklets: The DHG versus NCERT .......................................................................385
Where’s the Beef?.............................................................................................................................400
Where’s the RSS?..............................................................................................................................405
Vir Savarkar: Revered or Feared?..................................................................................................412
Oops! Goes the Mahatma & Howlers............................................................................................416
Are the New Textbooks Communal?.............................................................................................435
Doing History...................................................................................................444
Medieval India Revisited and Revised: Reviled or Rectified?..........................461
A Pulsating Versus a ‘Metabolically Challenged’ Geography.................................................469
Comparing Two Narratives: Whose India? Whose Stories?......................................................474
The ‘Arab World’ in India...............................................................................................................488
How Many Qassims, Ghaznvis, and Ghoris Do We Need?.......................................................500
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