School Textbooks

[Nazru]

The shaping force of a society's psyche is what is taught to their children in school. The debate in thread defence.pk/forums/current-events-social-issues/37301-state-curricula-textbooks-pakistan-2.html interested me in reading what is in the textbooks taught in pakistani schools? Is there an online repository of the textbooks.

I am providing online textbook links for various Indian textbook authorities, so that non-indian friends can get a true picture of what is taught in indian schools.

Central government board textbook:
ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm
Tamilnadu state board textbook:
textbooksonline.tn.nic.in
Karnataka state board textbook:
dsert.kar.nic.in/textbooksonline/first.asp
Kerala state board textbook:
education.kerala.gov.in/textbook.htm

You shall find that the amount of coverage in the state board textbooks on partition, indo-pak conflicts are hardly more than a page.

We could use this thread to discuss coverage and validity of the contents in these books and compare-contrast against the system in Pakistan.

 

[Bushy]

Thank you Nazru, I had been looking for something like this for so long. Well thought out step indeed.

 

[Valiant_Soul]

We could use this thread to discuss coverage and validity of the contents in these books and compare-contrast against the system in Pakistan.

Yep, that will tell something how and why the thinking of a nation is shaped.

 

[RiazHaq]

Here are some excerpts from Gujarat textbooks:

*Gujarat is a border state. Its land and sea boundaries touch the boundaries of Pakistan which is like a den of terrorism. Under such circumstances, it is absolutely necessary for us to understand the effects of terrorism and the role of citizens in the fight against it

*If every countryman becomes an ideal citizen and develops patriotism, the National Population Policy can definitely be achieved

*When people used to meet earlier, they wished each other saying Ram Ram and by shaking hands. Today, people enjoy their meeting by speaking Namaste. Is it not a change?

*Making full use of Muslim fanaticism, Osama Bin Laden organized die-hard Muslims and founded the International Jihad Organization in the name of the Jehedi movement*
[Excerpted from Social Science textbooks, standard nine (2005) and standard eight (2004)]

Here are some of the edits pushed by the VHP and RSS supporters in California in a failed effort to whitewash India's history of caste and gender discrimination as well as the origins of Hinduism brought to India by Aryan invaders and imposed on the locals in the Indus Valley:

For example change "“Men had many more rights than women. Unless there were no sons in a family, only a man could inherit property. Only men could go to school or become priests."

to: Men had different rights and duties than women" and add after last sentence, "Women's education was mostly done at home".

Change from: "“The language and traditions of the Indo-Aryan speakers replaced the old ways of the Harappans…”

to: “People from elsewhere in India replaced…”

India Together: Gujarat's textbooks: Full of biases and errors - 19 February 2007

Details of Proposed Textbook Edits: Controversial Changes to California History Textbooks

 

[Nazru]

I would like to read the Gujarat textbooks from which these quotes are taken. If these are actually there, it is objectionable.

 

[Nazru]

And regarding the california edits, there has been no basis for either the original contexts or the edits proposed.

 

[Nazru]

I was going thro the post defence.pk/forums/members-club/36973-wasim-akrams-wife-critical-emergency-landing-chennai.html, where certain replies stated, "Chennai is pro-pakistan", "chennai folks applaud Afridi century", "Chennai gave standing ovation to Pakistan team".

Well, the reason is in the textbooks. I have not found a single sentence of hate towards pakistan or muslims in all the 12 year textbooks and hence animosity is unfound in the general public.

 

[Bushy]

I have done my schooling in India, and I can assure you that not all Indian textbooks are as holy as we wish to think. The history part is very much impeccable, because of the strong neutral group of historians in India, but there are many other things to compensate for that quality.

For example, even today at least 30% of Hindi language poems are religious "dohe", used as part of the platform to test the linguistic skills of students in Hindi. My question is, why in a secular country a student, of a religion other than Hindu, should be forced to read such religious 'dohe' to score in the exams? After all, Urdu is not an imperative subject in the NCERT, is it?

 

[FreekiN]

I went to Lahore College of Arts and Sciences. Some of you may know about it. We used mainly Oxford published books written by Pakistani's.