Rewriting (or lack of it) textbooks is subject of recurrent discussion in the social media.  Text book is an instrument to collectivize bodies of knowledge under a single roof. For a student, at all levels from kindergarten to doctoral and post-doctoral studies, text book for years often remained the only source of knowledge discovery, comprehension and assimilation. Apparent dearth of choices in means of knowledge production and discovery in the industrial information era ensued the teacher evolved into an aggregator and a simplifier of contents. The objective ostensibly was to prepare students for end term examination and thus promotion to higher classes.  Creative output, however desirous it might be, remained an incidental consequence. The teacher thus functioned as monopoly of source of understanding subject knowledge.

Text books are tailored to the syllabus, a handiwork of a committee of experts (at times euphemism for those in good books of the government). The syllabus ideally categorises topics around ‘need to know’ ‘good to know’ and ‘nice to know’ for the students in different stages. These topics would be condensed into a resultant text book in different concentrations. Needless to say, perks and privileges no matter how small they might seem, offer valuable incentives to be part of these text book and syllabus revision committees. In higher education nevertheless, text books are subject to vagaries of the markets

Construction of edifice for a new knowledge ecosystem necessitates a commencement of the same from childhood. The so-called mainstream academic thought, a monopoly of an academic cabal who despite their roots anchored from orientalists to Macualyists, to Marxians to Nehruivans to neo Marxian to post Nehruvian revealed one common objective- the ‘detoxification’ of the Indic faith. Hence, it would be an understatement to describe text books in India mainly the school and undergraduate level as partisan.

In absence of political continuity, the fight-back from the Indic right is subject to a game of musical chairs with their ideological opponents. Change the text books, lose power, the text books get rewritten, regain power, and again re-rewrite the text books and the game goes on. In fact, there is chance of emergence of a cabal thriving in ‘power rotation’ every five years thus sharing the fruits of perks and privileges of text book/ syllabus committees.

Besides, a significant section of Indic right seem to be persuaded that text book offers the best mechanism to ingrain in the children the genuine socio-cultural-historical foundations of the Indian civilization. Indubitably, there is a merit in the argument yet somewhere they seem to be missing the wood for the trees. In addition, the discourse frequently boils towards rhetoric drowning out constructive criticism.

Therefore the context is appropriate to identify the objectives of the educationists seeking to foster an Indic understanding of the subjects. If the objective were to be mere syllabus reconstruction and consequent rewriting of text books, the current approach seems sufficient. Alternatively, if the objective were to be a conception of a new epitome, robust, decentralised and long lasting, a lock stock and barrel obliteration of the existing models, current approach seems insufficient.  As we live in a thought process with regaining the academic terrains from the Left, natural corollary is are we in the process overlooking the future?

Students exhibit an engagement and stimulation when relating with a medium be it a text book, a teacher, a movie, a cartoon, a newspaper or any other medium. This leads to the development of a certain sensibility in the student. Availability and expansion of technology enabled options have diminished the role of both textbook and teacher as monopoly in construction of these sensibilities. Academic leftism which monopolized Indian education paradigms thanks to the first mover advantage finds its influence diminishing as the digital age opens up new vistas.

The seemingly exponential evolution of technology and the accompanying outwardly infinite possibilities it offers, text books look increasingly archaic. The student and the teacher alike perhaps find Wikipedia as the key source of information in contrast to the text book. It is commonplace to find students doing a Google Search, one of the top results inevitably be a Wiki entry and thus browse through Wikipedia and become an expert! Google Search and the results it throws up sets the direction for what people read thus a vital cornerstone in modelling their thought process. Teachers often find that students trying to verify or validate what the teacher is saying through visiting the pages of Wikipedia and perhaps at times cross questioning the teacher.

Enough pointers indicate the advent of WhatsApp and Facebook as the sources of information acquisition thus building frame of opinion making. Therefore, while the battles are being fought in boardrooms of syllabus redesign and consequent incorporation of the same text book, bottom up pressures in knowledge assembly and absorption present new virgin territories awaiting to be captured.  Consequently redrawing priorities is inescapable.

Embrace Wikipedia (English and indigenous languages)

Wiki despite its apparent leftist inclination on topics especially on India (to certain extent due to first mover advantage in content building), is underdeveloped and often superficial content in many instances offer abundant latitude for deeper dissection of topics related to the Indian socio-cultural-historical milieu exists. Despite relative laggardness of socio-cultural right wing in Wiki content building workshops, students and teachers still remain primary soldiers to be harnessed in the content building.

Contrary to perception, Wikipedia in Indic languages potentially will emerge as principal tool in information production and dissemination relative to its English counterpart. Besides giving the content developers an appreciation of the richness their native language offers, it enhances the dignity of Indic languages often suffering at the hands of English.  

A reluctance towards embracing Wiki is perceptible in the right wing yet without a similar embrace of Twitter it would not perhaps been possible to capture the Hindu political mind-space

Create Crowd Sourced Underpinned Knowledge Platforms

The reluctance of embracing Wiki however should not preclude possibilities of creation of an alternative platform.   Crowd-sourced platforms succeed subject to meeting the conditions of independence, diversity, decentralization and aggregation. It can safely said, not even a tip of iceberg has been touched in involving the ordinary Indian in building and transmitting the knowledge discovery accumulation and ingraining. The battles in all probability will be determined by the subsequent network externalities. Capillary action approaches suggest no reason why a new Wiki like platform cannot be developed for Indic specific content. Consumers as producers perchance will be a catalyst in information production and transmission. Collaboration, openness and sharing determine the trajectory the new platform might travel. Decentralized ownership of knowledge creation are likely to result in stronger foundations for Indic thought building process thus negating the text book top down advantage of leftist thought groups.

Mainstream the niches

Text books, no matter how comprehensive, are product of trade-offs. Richness in content compromises on breadth of topics as also reach while focus on breadth and reach entails a sacrifice in richness. Digital space eliminates this richness-reach trade off and enable harnessing what is described as the Long Tail. No topic is insignificant in itself. An example would be every region produced its own illustrious list of freedom fighters yet their stories go unnoticed outside the region. Digital platforms precisely plays the role of intermediary in transmitting their achievements to regions far beyond thus bringing new illuminations. There is a niche audience for in terms of both production and consumption that might be unimportant in the physical world but gains a significant traction in the digital spaces.

Exploit the Lifecycle

Apparently digital products pass through a life cycle. An attainment of critical mass implies a movement from the select niche to an adoption by the masses.  The critical mass is accompanied by critical price, which when falls below a certain level enables a vigorous mass adoption. The price need not be as conventionally assumed monetary dimension but could take the shape of non-monetary forms like the ease of access or use. Breaching of critical mass and price is the condition when it displaces existing technologies and drives the output towards zero price. Time lag does exists yet worth pursuing. In fact, the success of the right wing political narrative on the social media can be explained by the above lifecycle. There seems to be no reason why it cannot be replicated in the emergent digital text book space

Concluding remarks

Creative destruction in the digital space was facilitated by the democratization of production, distribution and access of knowledge flows. The right wing was intuitive to grasp it in the shaping of the political narrative and creating grounds for building the socio-cultural narrative on the social media while demolishing the leftist strains of thought.  Yet there seems to be some marked reluctance perhaps sub conscious to extend the sphere of dominance to related encompassing fields. The new paradigms of production, distribution and access will be increasingly rooted in voice and translation than English text underpinned models of the current. If the right wing were to succeed in the same, the text books battles become irrelevant since they no longer would monopolize the sources of knowledge. In fact the textbook as we know is awaiting to be creatively destructed. It is important that we leverage tools of 21^st century to create, distribute, consume, and assimilate knowledge.

Image Credits: http://epathshala.nic.in/e-pathshala-4/flipbook/