Some time ago, the Indian parliament heard one of its most powerful speeches. HRD minister Smriti Irani’s speech in the Lok Sabha was an answer to the ongoing saga at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the suicide of Rohith Vemula. It resonated with people because it tore into the leftist stranglehold of the mainstream. Upon her quest to tackle this menace at its roots, she told the parliament about the filth that had infiltrated the education system at lower levels. Some of the examples presented were so appalling that a nationwide movement has begun to combat institutionalized propaganda and save our students. Our textbooks have been political tools for too long, and this needs to change.

Nothing can be a bigger threat to India than generation after generation growing up with a warped worldview. For many years, the irony of our system has been this: that on one side our security agencies fight everything that threatens national security while on the other, our education system lays a firm foundation on impressionable young minds that makes of them potential threats to national security. The students who sloganeered at JNU are a product of the Indian education system, and what this system has instilled in them is that our nation is a joke and isn’t to be taken seriously. India’s self-destruct sequence, set in motion through our education system needs to aborted. Amends need to be made before it is too late.

We are perturbed when television anchors take a diluted stance on nationalism. The leftist lean of our intelligentsia disturbs us. When separatists and Naxalites sport national awards, we are outraged. But these are just the tip of the iceberg, there are larger fish to fry. Millions of students grow up with a sense of shame about Indian culture, a sense of non-finality about our country, and of course a sense of pro-left and anti-right. Strong nationalism is a generally a rightist trait, whereas the basis of communism is that countries are a conspiracy of the higher class to suppress the lower class. This is not to say that the paragons of Indian leftist thinking want India destroyed, they are happy fanning flames for their political ends. It is the innocent, impressionable youth that usually takes such falsehood seriously. This is the danger that looms large. The culprits are our textbooks.

It is a wonder how a legacy has been carved out of king Ashoka, who wasn’t even known to people until the British found some inscriptions. It is likely that this happened because he advocates a nanny state, which is close to socialism. The Arthashastra, a socio-political doctrine of ancient India considered to be right of center has been sidelined. Our textbooks generally do not refer to the Mughals as invaders. Shivaji is often spoken about in a poor light. Indian advancements in several fields are often omitted. The false impression that we are essentially not one people, and that we have nothing much to be proud of, is subtly transmitted. These were the same methods used by the British during the colonial era to neutralize their subjects and project themselves as saviors. The question is, whom are these lies serving today? Have a look at whom these textbooks praise, as if they have come to save the country!

CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) is now being called ‘Congress Built System of Education’ after some extracts of fifth standard textbooks have emerged in public domain. According to one such extract, Rahul Gandhi is a natural at public life. He’s the fifth generation of India’s most influential and charismatic political family. He took to politics like proverbial duck to water, and exhibited impressive confidence and maturity. He’s part of the Congress Party’s new crop of bright young politicians. Leave aside the facts that all of this is fiction and there is no reason for a chapter like this to exist in our textbooks. Observe the little insinuations the chapter makes: Rahul Gandhi is a great man. He comes from a great family. The Congress party is full of talent. When you put this junk in a fifth standard textbook, it is quite clear that you want to inculcate a certain mentality amongst the youth.

Yet another interesting extract about the Godhra riots has come to the fore. “Of all the wars and killings around the world in this age, the Gujarat massacre can be termed as the worst and as the handiwork of the filth of the human race, the fundamental Hindu.” Forget Mao and Stalin, under whose rule killed many people were killed. Forget Jyoti Basu in our own backyard, under whom there were many recorded political murders, and god alone knows how many unrecorded ones. Forget the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and all the other riots our country has witnessed, forget the fundamental Muslims and Christians around the world. This extract explicitly states that of all the violence in the world, what happened in Gujarat was the worst. Of all the filth in the human race, the Hindu fundamentalists are the worst. What this insinuates is that instead of being ashamed of violence and fundamentalism in general, it is only proper to be ashamed of the violence that happened at home, perpetrated by our ilk. This is the false idea that our textbooks planted. The false idea the Mr. Narendra Modi had something to do with this was planted by the media. Put two and two together, and we have an entire class of people who hate their own prime minster for no good reason.

But more importantly, they dislike their country and their faith in the process. If millions come out of their classrooms harboring these sort of emotions, it is a huge problem. On top of it there is the mainstream media and the intelligentsia, a group of spin doctors who eloquently back such ideas. The problem with politicizing the education system is this, that it has potentially adverse consequences.

When it comes to thinking critically about such issues, the problem is that most people do not feel the need to. The mainstream blitzkrieg is enough to reinforce their pre-conceived notions. This HRD ministry’s intervention to clean up the content that is imparted to the masses is the need of the hour. Their initial steps must be applauded. All such nonsense must be brought to the ministry’s notice.