Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

[chequita guevara]

Re: Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Duh.

[Barnabas]

Didnt india refuse to celebrate the 500 years of the arrival of Vasco da Gama?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

Aurangzeb was a total bastard. It should be pointed out that even his muslim governors hated him, the end result being the breakup of the Mogul empire. He did his best to eradicate pre-Mogul Indian history - which is probably one reason why the presentation of ancient Indian history is so disjointed. Big chunks of the records no longer exist thanks to emporer A******.

Though this is well-known , our history books mention nothing about his atrocities . Nothing . Not one word . And that bugs me .

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

How long has it been since the Congress party dominated Indian politics, two decades? I woulkd think that by now their "communist" influence on Indian school books would be gone.

The Congress , unfortunately ( in my opinion ) , is still in power , though it is not dominating any longer . And the problem is in the fact that the very small group of people appointed by them to important posts , who happened to be useful to the party , have retained control of key institutions which decide how history books have to be written .

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Seems strange to me: in a country that is so vastly Hindu, how does the education system end up favouring Islam and monotheism?

The problem is two-fold .

The first problem is the perversion of the meaning of the word secularism . Secularism means that the state does not favour or discriminate against any religion . In India , it has acquired the incorrect meaning of "all religions are equally good" . It has also led to appeasement of the minorities - whenever some minority leader makes a demand , politicians , in order to garner the minority vote , all line up behind him , irrespective of how harmful that demand may be to the country . To prove that they are "secular" , many so-called "intellectualls" and politicians have made it their stock-in-trade to denounce the majority religion . It has gone the the extent that the government has set up a ministry to subsidise the Haj pilgrimage Muslims undertake - and the money for this comes from temples !

The second is the control of a small group of people over all major institutions which decide the nature of mainstream discourse in the country . These people happened to be useful to the party in power at the time , but they have slowly extended their influence . And they are the ones who favour Islam and monotheism over the indigenous traditions . Whenever possible , the local tradition is denigrated , and whenever possible , Islam and monotheism are held up as saviours of the people . I'll quote some examples when I get the time .

[GePap]

Not giving a damn about Aneeshm's hindu nationalism, but responding to the question ion the thread title:

All history is based on a political agenda. The very act of what counts as History and what does not is a political act, be it actively or passively undertaken.

No one ever teaches "true history", since at least until very recently history was recorded by people, people who invariably had preconceptions and biases that informed their records. With new mediums like photography and video one can create a less subjective record, but then of course the masses will not hjave easy access, nor the background to understand what they see. They must be told what they are seeing, and thus history remains in the hands of people who are subejctive and infuse their own ideas and biases into the material.

No history is free of an agenda, even if we judge the agenda to be benign.

[Odin]

I'm my experience, history curricula before you get to college are hyper-sanitised and are made bland and boring, so the school doesn't get complaints from parents screaming "BIAS! BIAS!" If you teach that Vietnam was a fools errand from the start (which it was), you'd get a bunch of angery right-wing parents whining at the teacher saying that "No, it was those smelly, dirty hippies that made us loose the war! How dare you contaminate our kids with such evil, librul anti-American rubbish!"

[MrFun]

Re: Re: Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Duh.

Articulate, well-written, and well-thought posts.

[RGBVideo]

Re: Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Yes. It shouldn't be. The more distorted history education becomes, the less we can correctly learn from it (ZOMFG SADDAM MAHMOUD = HITLER!) and the more useless it becomes. People with selfish short-term political agendas distort history

Originally posted by SpencerH
My point was that the apologists, who seem to write history textbooks, use the "Treaty of Versailles" as an unwritten excuse for nazi-germanys aggression. The "Treaty of Versailles" influenced the political climate in Germany since it's excesses gave credence to revolutionary thinking which in turn led to the growth of the communist and nazi parties. That is a separate issue from "events that led to WWII". If the nazis had not been bent on conquest, WWII would not have happened, "Treaty of Versailles" or no "Treaty of Versailles".

You realise that there is a difference between reason and justification, right? The thing is, the treaty led directly to a jingoistic government in Germany, a government which favoured war with France. It isn't about apologising the Nazis, it's about trying to create explanations (or make up excuses) why they got to power.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by aneeshm
The second is the control of a small group of people over all major institutions which decide the nature of mainstream discourse in the country. These people happened to be useful to the party in power at the time , but they have slowly extended their influence . And they are the ones who favour Islam and monotheism over the indigenous traditions . Whenever possible , the local tradition is denigrated , and whenever possible , Islam and monotheism are held up as saviours of the people . I'll quote some examples when I get the time .

No free press in India? No private TV channels? No internet fora?

Get off your butts and get the government out of media. Political parties have no business deciding who does what in media. Except those they own, but those should be few and far between.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
[unspecific Hindutva nationalist rant] blabla why do people try to revision our revisionist conception of an all united Hindu past of all India? Why do I tell you, who have never seen an Indianhistory textbook and thus can't care less, anyway? blabla [/unspecific hinduist rant]

If you masturbate the traditional way rather than like this then only your mommy has to see your mess.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by GePap
Not giving a damn about Aneeshm's hindu nationalism, but responding to the question ion the thread title:

I have never understood this charge . Can you please cite a specific example of what you consider to be my "Hindu nationalism" , instead of making blanket statements ?

Originally posted by GePap

All history is based on a political agenda. The very act of what counts as History and what does not is a political act, be it actively or passively undertaken.

No one ever teaches "true history", since at least until very recently history was recorded by people, people who invariably had preconceptions and biases that informed their records. With new mediums like photography and video one can create a less subjective record, but then of course the masses will not hjave easy access, nor the background to understand what they see. They must be told what they are seeing, and thus history remains in the hands of people who are subejctive and infuse their own ideas and biases into the material.

No history is free of an agenda, even if we judge the agenda to be benign.

Then does it not make sense to just present the facts , as they are known today , like the NPOV policy Wikipedia has ( though sometimes fails to enforce ) ?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by VetLegion


No free press in India? No private TV channels? No internet fora?

Get off your butts and get the government out of media. Political parties have no business deciding who does what in media. Except those they own, but those should be few and far between.

The press if free . But because the major governmental institutions are in the hands of these people , and because they have written social sciences books for the past few decades , the nature of discourse , as I have said previously , has grown distorted , and anyone who disagrees with the prevalent opinion is labeled "fascist , commnualist , anti-secular" etc. , even though what he may be saying is none of these . That is the main problem - everybody , including the free media , has internalised the canards of these so-called "intellectualls" .

Let me provide an example . I posted a thread yesterday about how Muslim militants massacred Hindus in Kashmir , in a terrorist attack . The newspapers did not even mention that it was only Hindus who were killed - they just said "xyz number killed in terrorist attack" . Do you see the problem ?

[Colonâ„¢]

"Just" the facts is meaningless: history is 99% deduction and interpretation.
For instance, it's been decided in Belgium to teach the pupils about the Battle of Poiteers/Tours (the exact location isn't a settled fact) because there's a broad consensus amongst western historicians that it had large consequences. To be totally bias-free, you'd have to teach about all the historical records that have remained of that battle along with that of all the hundreds of other battles that may have taken place in the time period.
Teaching automatically involves a selection of what's important be taught and what's not, since it's impossible to simply present pupils every single historical record that exists and tell them interpret it as they see fit. They'd essentially have to redo the work historicians do.

[Tingkai]

Re: Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Originally posted by aneeshm
I personally find the history textbooks of India edited to fit an agenda .

History is subjective, as much from the writer's point of view as from the reader's point of view.

If you really want to study history than you need to recognize how your opinions distort your understanding of what you read. Of course, it is much easier to rant about "they," whoever they are, are trying to distort history.

If you are really interested in how history is studied and taught, you should start by reading "What is History?" by E.H. Carr.

[SpencerH]

Re: Re: Is history education in schools distotred to fit a political agenda ?

Originally posted by VJ

You realise that there is a difference between reason and justification, right?

Please feel free to provide an explanation as to the differences (in the context of what we are discussing).

The thing is, the treaty led directly to a jingoistic government in Germany, a government which favoured war with France.

AFAIK, the nazis did not want to go to war with England and France. It wasnt until after the brilliant success in Poland and the time to continue arming during the "phoney war" that it was believed that a war against France and England could be won.

It isn't about apologising the Nazis, it's about trying to create explanations (or make up excuses) why they got to power.

Please note your phrase "why they got to power" (in any case Versaille was only a factor in why they got to power- it was more of a raison d'etre really) not "why the Treaty of Versailles was an event that led to WWII". The ****ing germans started WWII, everything else is revisionist nonsense.