SAFFRONIZATION OR DESAFFRONIZATON:WHO IS GOING TO SUFFER?

SAFFRONISATION OR DESAFFRONISATION: WHO IS GOING TO SUFFER?
The recent debate on NCERT books among the political parties and the academicians has been covered by the media in a big way. But has any one spared a piece of thought for those who are the worst sufferer, for those who are still confused which fact to rely upon? These sufferers are the students who study these books to pass their school examination or the unemployed youth who toil hard, going through these books, to crack government services examination.
As a civil services aspirant, I use to read the NCERT books, but my dilemma began when the NDA government changed the whole structure of the books. Having history as my optional subject, I found that many of the facts that I have been reading had been altered. I would highlight some of the historical facts which were deleted in the new NDA sponsored NCERT.
“For special guests beef was served as a mark of honour” (Class VI, Romila Thapar),
“Cattle wealth slowly decimated because cows and bullocks were killed in numerous Vedic sacrifices … the brahmanical reaction began as a result of the policy of Ashoka. He... derided superfluous rituals performed by women. This naturally affected the income of the Brahmanas.” (Class XI, R S Sharma)
“Archaeological evidence should be considered far more important than long family trees given in the Puranas. The Puranic tradition could be used to date Rama of Ayodhya around 2000 BC, but extensive excavations in Ayodhya do not show any settlements around that date.” (R.S Sharma)
“Jats founded their state at Bharatpur from where they conducted plundering raids in the regions around.” (Class VIII, Arjun Dev and Indira Arjun Dev)
“In 1675, Guru Tegh Bahadur was arrested and executed. The official explanation for this... is that after his return from Assam, the Guru, in association with one Hafiz Adam, resorted to plundering and raping, laying waste the whole province of Punjab.” (Class XI, Satish Chandra)
The problem with these passages is that they attack a sanctified image of Hinduism. Hindus are known to worship the cow. Reference to beef-eating and cow slaughter for Vedic rituals amounts to sacrilege. A pro-Hindu government lead by the BJP and guided by Hindu organisations like the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangha expressed fury over such writingd. The last two passages referring to Jaats being marauders and the Sikh guru plundering and raping too is highly objectionable to the respective communities. respec But my question is why were the facts not challenged, and imparted to school students for almost thirty years?
The new book was replete of evidences which glorified Hinduism and not only it changed the facts but also gave much wrong information like:
Madagascar, an Indian Ocean island off the southeastern coast of Africa, has been stated to be located in the Arabian Sea.
In the social science textbook for standard VI, human beings are said to have appeared on earth only hundreds of thousands of years ago (It has been established humans appeared some four million years ago).Only a few pages later, the texts say that "for millions of years, humans lived by hunting and gathering food."

The Vedic age has been clubbed with the Harappan civilization and the
Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Chinese, Greek, Roman and Iranian civilizations have been classified as "early non-Indian civilizations."

The Harappan civilization is replete with references to Hindu symbols in order to show the antiquity of Hinduism. A female figurine in terracotta dating back to that age has been shown with vermilion in her hair parting, a practice among contemporary Hindu married women.

I was in a complete fix over which book to choose for my answers. Let’s assume that I consider the facts of the new edition to be correct, but it would always remain mystery to me which version of ‘truth’ the examiner deemed to be correct. I had to nervously live with this dilemma.

My woes deepened as the government changed and UPA came back to power. All the history books that were published under NDA’s regime books were scrapped and again the old books came in circulation. Recently, the UPA government came out with new set of NCERT books. These books are neither free of biases. It is written to promote Congress as well as left ideology, as both are allies in the UPA government. I found a number of references in class IX and XI Political science book which will prove my point.The class IX Political science book for example, is unapologetically anti American. In its one sided approach, it blames American involvement in Chile’s coup in 1970s; makes it solely responsible for Iraq war and the incident of Guantanamo Bay. This type of content though may be partially correct but it can induce anti American sentiments in the young students. It will prejudice young mind rather than developing a balanced view.

What is amazing in both these IX and XI books, there is no mention about Vajpayee or Narasimha Rao governments, which in reality transformed India on the economic front. The only point where the textbooks make a reference to Vajpayee led NDA Government is when it talks about Yashwant Sinha’s budget rollbacks. The political biasness of the textbook writers is apparent in its one page reference to Gujarat Riots vis-a vis National Human Rights Commission (NHRC); while it is silent about Anti-Sikh riots in Delhi following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The text books also gloss over the murder of Indian Democracy in the form of emergency with just a one sentence oblique reference to the Janata Party with no reference to the fact that it was the Congress that imposed emergency. Another glaring example of this one sidedness is when the narrative abstains from referring to the Congress Party by name in the context of emergency and corruption case against PV Narasimha Rao as a sitting prime minister.
As the political distortion and tampering of historical facts continues with the change of subsequent governments, it is unlikely that this trend will cease in the foreseeable future. As for the civil aspirants are concerned they might as well continue to ride on the horns of dilemma in search of truth.