Source: The Wire

News is that, after having streamlined educational infrastructure in Delhi’s government schools to commendable levels, the Delhi government is now set to bring new concepts of curricular richness to what school going girls and boys hitherto routinely learn.

Whereas any draft of the departures and inclusions is yet to surface, some indications are forthcoming from an interview given by the Delhi education minister to NDTV.

One concept that the government now seeks to hammer home is what the minister has called deshbhakti, meaning patriotism.

Pressed to enunciate what sort of content the government has in mind with respect to the instilling of “deshbhakti,” the minister seemed to indicate a course of instruction that would make good citizens and good human beings of school-going girls and boys, as distinct from studying the usual subjects of academic learning.

The minister here, in passing, mentioned two sorts of things: one, for example, to learn to treat women with respect, and to abide by the “systems” that obtain in a republican order.

On the face of it, most laudable.

But apprehensions will remain till a draft text of what is contemplated is in hand.

For example, when asked how this new curriculum bearing on patriotism might differ from a right-wing construction of the concept, the minister was somewhat less than sentient with any sharp demarcations thereof.

Questions and speculations, therefore, inevitably spring to mind.

Leaving aside, for now, the isolated subject of how to treat women, what might it mean to abide by the “system” that the minster spoke of?

One would imagine that “system” has reference, foremost to the constitution of India and the founding values and principles of state and citizenship it enshrines.

Thus, will “deshbhakti” as contemplated by the Delhi government be rooted, for example, in the following republican verities that the constitution enjoins upon us without regard to our placement in the polity?

• adherence to the all-important concept of secularism;
• adherence to the  stipulation of the equality of all citizens before the law;
• adherence to the concept of plurality within a diverse skein of cultures and ways of life, including equal respect for all religious practices, and the obligation of the state to ensure that such diversity is at all times preserved, protected, and promoted;
• repudiation of  casteist, communal, and patriarchal mind-sets, and all discriminatory practices thereof;
• adherence to the principle of free speech and free choice;
• commitment to the exercise of scientific temper, and to the right to criticise state policies or social excesses that militate against the right to free expression and free choice; or, that may be iniquitous and discriminatory with regard to marginalised and under-privileged sections of the populace on any ground not endorsed by the constitution;
• adherence to the right to free assembly and peaceful protest;
• learning to imbibe the importance of environmental issues that bear on the very existence of natural and human life;
• openness to the best universal and humanist spiritual teachings of all faiths, and the readiness to incorporate these into everyday personal and social behaviour;
• commitment to shun violence of any kind at all times, and never to seek to impose one’s own views on others with threat or blackmail;
• commitment to a culture of debate and discussion, especially when any authority system seeks to impose its prejudices or preferences on citizens of any description;
• commitment to place the constitution above all other texts in times, especially, of grave sectarian contentions;
• learning to recognise that patriotism or “deshbhakti” is a concept that applies to human beings in all nations other than our own, and must be so  respected.

Needless to affirm, the “system” that the minister has alluded to can only mean the system bequeathed to us by the sanctities of the constitution.

If the learning of “deshbhakti”, on the other hand, comes to mean merely obedience to elders, giving in to untruths or atrocities as perpetrated by loved ones or authorities in place, or such superficial things as keeping one’s house and neighbourhood clean, brushing one’s teeth with regularity, flying to righteous rage any time others voice criticism of our ways and practices – such a moral compass may tend to produce only very submissive, complaint, uncritical and, proverbially, “good girls and good boys” who may be subservient to edicts of one sort or another.

Most of all, “deshbhakti” can only be an impoverished and unethical construct unless our school going girls and boys also learn of the conditions of denial, deprivation, malnutrition, and the many life-threatening sicknesses wrought by malnutrition in which millions of Indian children are compelled to live by an iniquitous economic order.

Likewise, “deshbhakti” must also include an uninhibited knowledge of how Indian males seem conditioned to treat living women of all ages and circumstances as inferior objects who may be exploited in all sorts of gruesome ways to satisfy the male ego. And, how our law-enforcement agencies more often than not seem to hold the woman responsible whenever a shameful atrocity is vented on her.

Lastly, whereas patriotism or “deshbhakti” entails that we stand in defence of the country we love whenever she is threatened by expansionist or disloyal elements and forces, it is much to be hoped that the Delhi government’s notion of “deshbhakti” will not, at bottom, be a familiar paean to uncritical militarism and righteous jingoism of which we have seen much during the last few years of national life.

Whereas any good “deshbhakt” honours the hard conditions in which our forces stand ready to protect the republic, and pays homage to the sacrifices they make, our girls and boys must know that our forces owe allegiance to the constitution, and not to any parry or person.

And they must learn of the dangers that accrue when nations lose sight of that all-important republican principle.