Southern States
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Andhra Pradesh
'Need' to record history of native people
By Our Staff Reporter
VISAKHAPATNAM, DEC. 6. While there is a raging controversy over the deletion of some portions from history textbooks with the BJP-led NDA Government bent on incorporating the Hindu way of life as mentioned in the epics, the Government and the Opposition once again were glossing over the necessity to record the original and native socio-cultural history of people who lived in India before various conquerors invaded it, Mr. Katti Padma Rao, AP Dalit Mahasabha secretary, said here on Wednesday.
Speaking to mediapersons, he said that the textbooks were formulated with imperialist impact rather than restoring the culture and language of the native land. While religion was being given prominence, the concept of brotherhood was not given due importance. "None objects to mentioning Indian culture but narrating it from religious point of view is unwelcome".
He said that epics and history were different. While epics were religious stories and beliefs of a community, history was a record of facts with evidence in the form of `shasanas', tools, coins and written language to substantiate it. "What Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, Union HRD Minister, is attempting to do is to infuse textbooks with Hindu imperialism through epics."
Another glaring lacuna in the present education system, he said, was that while education in other countries aimed at teaching an individual how to lead life, here the objective was securing a job. Any education system should primarily teach history of one's land and how to live life.
Mr. Padma Rao regretted that even existing textbooks based on works of historians like Romila Thapar, Bipin Chandra, Khosambi and R.S. Sharma had little drawn from the original Indian literary sources and materials. While there were civilizations even before 3500 BC, the textbooks mentioned that Indus Valley civilization and Harappa and Mohenjodaro culture existed even before the Vedic age. "Aryans had come to India as conquerors. Now BJP wants to change this concept by deleting some portions from the textbooks," he alleged.
In ancient India, script (lipi) emerged much later and therefore the communities which had access to written word first had dominated Indian communities. Citing an example, he said that Buddhism originated in India as the first religion with enormous literature, but it was never translated into Indian languages though it was recorded even in the Chinese language. Resourceable literature started in the Buddhist period but that period was distinctly missing from our textbooks which mentioned only conquerors.
Similarly literature on Jainism had established the relationship between man and nature but "our textbooks miss that also". The materialism expounded by Charuvaka, Lokayutulu and the subsequent Sankhya philosophy which gave `Anu-vadam' (atomic theory) also had no mention in the textbooks. It was translated worldwide but not into Indian languages. "As literature is not available, we are kept in dark about the native Indian culture and its aborigines".
Even while recording modern history, prominence had been given to Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and not to Mahatma Pule, Narayana Guru and Ambedkar who propagated an alternative movement. As a result they were not understood, he said.
Referring to Telugu State, he said there was so much history before the Sathavahana period which was never recorded. Buddhism was more popular in Telugu land and the literature was being followed in 200 countries but it was not established "in our land".
The Andhras remained backward in digging history unlike Tamils, he said. "Our sense of history is poor unlike Tamils'. Regional languages like Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada are used even for official business, but in Telugu land one depends only on English. The State Government too for its part remains apathetic to establishing Telugu history and culture nor does it have a constructive programme to revive Telugu Kalarupas like Burrakatha and Harikatha which are fading away."
The Dalit leader criticised the Chandrababu Naidu Government for "withdrawing scholarships and doing away with hostel facility to SC students". By corporatising Intermediate education and professional courses, he had confined the SCs to arts courses, he said.
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