have a look at them too

Jispa is learning about the great war in History class. She has been reading a lot about the Schlieffen Plan as she has that as a case study. Today she told me that she has to present the plan today to the class. I told her “that’s really awesome. I am so jealous”. She looked at me and asked if I was being sarcastic. “no, not sarcastic but real. We learnt shitty history”. She said “all shivaji and all?”. “well yes, we had Shivaji but it’s not about Shivaji that’s the issue. Shivaji would also be awesome, if taught well.”

Earlier on, I used to be quite critical of the local history and culture being imposed on the kids. At school we were taught Marathi as a compulsory subject and we had every alternate year, Maratha History in the history text book. This was kind of really painful. We used this to criticize the government and the administration. The issue really is not the force feed of local culture. Today I would vote for local culture as a part of curriculum. It’s the way that it was taught that was stupid. We should have learnt a lot about the Maratha land, in fact we should have been taught even more in detail and in depth. The great Maratha sea forts, their amazing designs, their strategic importance and the various different places where the wars were fought. The Maratha history is very interesting and they even reached Delhi via the Peshwas. They held off the British and were feared.  It was and still is an amazing piece of history. Even the fact that they taught Marathi in school is important. Here the politicians have got it right, they introduced the medium of administration as Marathi in the local offices. This allows the administrative framework to reach those to whom it really matters, the common people. Ofcourse they have made it militantly so and have kept it almost exclusively so. The non Marathi speaking population does find it intimidating to converse with the officialdom. But still, it’s still better than pushing English or Hindi down everyone’s throat. Here I like the Singapore model where English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. It’s a bit painful, but this was all communities are integrated into the government system. So, having Marathi in school is good, but the way it is taught is shit. We learnt it by rote and did not learn the basic art of conversational Marathi. Today while I understand Marathi and possibly can go for Marathi cinema (preferably with sub titles) I can’t really speak Marathi. Jispa too studied Marathi till 7^th grade but cannot speak it. The important part of it is the ability to have conversations in it. Once that’s done, the rest can follow. The script is almost the same as Hindi so that’s not the challenge.

So local culture, history and even geography is not the issue. The issue is the way it is taught. I told Jispa that “in school, we confused history with Eulogy”. “eulogy?”. “yup, here, google the word.” Eulogy: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, especially a tribute to someone who has just died. That’s what we did in history. We saw only one side of it and it was in many ways a tribute to the great Maratha and nothing more. A eulogy, that misses the balance in the perspective. “yes” she said. “we are allowed to see every side of history. We are allowed to criticize every aspect of everything in History. We made so much fun of King Louis of the French revolution.”. yup. That is history. Nothing but perspective from things that have happened. Something that will help us understand where we are and what we need to choose to be. History is so much more. Sadly, all my text books and teachers did was to glorify the wars the dead, have clear villains and enemies, typically those ‘Muslim invaders’ till the British came along at which time the Last Mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar became a ‘freedom fighter’. All we did was stupid dates, stupid salient features and a version was narrated to us. Jispa’s history has a whole book dedicated to the Great War, and the first thing the teacher says is that, this is a British book and hence it has the British version. If we read a Germna book, we will get the German version. I also wonder though, what a Japanese version would be.

History : From a subject that I hated and never understood its significance to a subject I read a lot about. I love it. I have tried to pass on my love for History to Jispa as well. At least at some point she wouldn’t question its importance in the curriculum like I did. I learnt nothing. 65 kids in a class, painfully bad infrastructure, stupid textbooks, stupider curriculum – what more can we expect.

Now I read so much and when I removed a few books from the cupboard, I had a few for Jispa to read. In addition to history I also asked her, if she was interested in some anti – government books. Her eye lit up. Yes, I have removed a few. Have a look at them too.