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 7th 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.
