PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-16541
.
People/male and female,/blush when a cloth covering their shame/comes .
loose
.
When all the world is the eye of the lord,/onlooking everywhere, what can .
you/ cover and conceal? .
To the shameless girl/wearing the White Jasmine Lord's/light of .
morning,/you fool,/where's the need for cover and jewel? Akka Mahadevi, .
.
12th century woman poet-saint .
For the BJP and ABVP, whose self-appointed task it is to ban women from wearing jeans, no wonder it is difficult to digest Akka Mahadevi, who scorned all social customs including even clothes. Rather than recognize the social radicalism of Akka Mahadevi, they would like to retrospectively clothe her defiant nakedness in saffron robes and turn her into a version of Sadhvi Rithambara! .
Unable to come up with any political initiatives and issues in the entire Monsoon session of Parliament, the BJP finally resorted to their pet staples of textbooks and Vande Mataram! Their objections to the NCERT textbooks expose their own politics all too well. .
.
At the sheer level of facts, the BJP proves to be false in Bipin Chandras textbook Modern India, for example, freedom fighters like Bipin Chandra Pal and Tilak have been described, not as terrorists, but as extremists in contrast to the moderates. .
.
.
In the history of India, the Gujarat riots and the the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the Emergency, are enormous political events that a Class XII student will read about in newspapers and see on TV, even if they are wiped out of textbooks. He or she will encounter casteist language and gender injustice daily in the family, society, and street. The real question is: will schools and textbooks equip a Class XII student with the tools to form opinions about such events; will it teach him/her to internalize the values of defending democracy, resisting communalism, casteism, or gender injustice? Or will the textbook and teacher maintain silence on these issues, allowing a student on the threshold of adulthood to believe that what is learnt in the classroom has no value or applicability in real life? .
.
.
It is ridiculous to suggest that a student who reads Premchands Doodh ka Daam or a Dhoomils Mochi Ram or a story by Om Prakash Valmiki, is likely to pick up the habit of using casteist abuse against dalits! It is like saying that someone who reads Martin Luther Kings speeches will become racist! The works of these writers seethe with the pain and anger against caste abuse; a student who reads them is far more likely to realize how inhuman such practices are, and question them in daily life too. .
.
.
Naturally, the BJP would like that the RSS shakha and the Saraswati Shishu Mandir saffron laboratories should have a free hand in brainwashing young children; if the child learns to question and debate matters in the classroom, such habits might seep through in their daily social life too. And that habit of asking questions and rejecting socially-transmitted prejudices would pose a serious danger to the BJPs fascist project. .
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-16541
.
People/male and female,/blush when a cloth covering their shame/comes .
loose
.
When all the world is the eye of the lord,/onlooking everywhere, what can .
you/ cover and conceal? .
To the shameless girl/wearing the White Jasmine Lord's/light of .
morning,/you fool,/where's the need for cover and jewel? Akka Mahadevi, .
.
12th century woman poet-saint .
For the BJP and ABVP, whose self-appointed task it is to ban women from wearing jeans, no wonder it is difficult to digest Akka Mahadevi, who scorned all social customs including even clothes. Rather than recognize the social radicalism of Akka Mahadevi, they would like to retrospectively clothe her defiant nakedness in saffron robes and turn her into a version of Sadhvi Rithambara! .
Unable to come up with any political initiatives and issues in the entire Monsoon session of Parliament, the BJP finally resorted to their pet staples of textbooks and Vande Mataram! Their objections to the NCERT textbooks expose their own politics all too well. .
.
At the sheer level of facts, the BJP proves to be false in Bipin Chandras textbook Modern India, for example, freedom fighters like Bipin Chandra Pal and Tilak have been described, not as terrorists, but as extremists in contrast to the moderates. .
.
.
In the history of India, the Gujarat riots and the the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the Emergency, are enormous political events that a Class XII student will read about in newspapers and see on TV, even if they are wiped out of textbooks. He or she will encounter casteist language and gender injustice daily in the family, society, and street. The real question is: will schools and textbooks equip a Class XII student with the tools to form opinions about such events; will it teach him/her to internalize the values of defending democracy, resisting communalism, casteism, or gender injustice? Or will the textbook and teacher maintain silence on these issues, allowing a student on the threshold of adulthood to believe that what is learnt in the classroom has no value or applicability in real life? .
.
.
It is ridiculous to suggest that a student who reads Premchands Doodh ka Daam or a Dhoomils Mochi Ram or a story by Om Prakash Valmiki, is likely to pick up the habit of using casteist abuse against dalits! It is like saying that someone who reads Martin Luther Kings speeches will become racist! The works of these writers seethe with the pain and anger against caste abuse; a student who reads them is far more likely to realize how inhuman such practices are, and question them in daily life too. .
.
.
Naturally, the BJP would like that the RSS shakha and the Saraswati Shishu Mandir saffron laboratories should have a free hand in brainwashing young children; if the child learns to question and debate matters in the classroom, such habits might seep through in their daily social life too. And that habit of asking questions and rejecting socially-transmitted prejudices would pose a serious danger to the BJPs fascist project. .
.