Humra Quraishi*
Don’t know whether to cry or scream or simply curl up in sorrow, after grasping the grim fact that several deletions have been made in the NCERT Class 12 Political Science textbooks. Not just vital portions deleted which carried details of the Babri Masjid demolition on 6 December 1992, but even references to the Rath Yatra led by L K Advani and the Kar Sevaks – the destroyers of the Babri Masjid, or any of the details of the Gujarat Riots of 2002. Not to overlook the fact that the very word Masjid has been dropped from Babri Masjid! Instead, another term has come up for it – Three Domed Structure!
Even history has not been spared! Even the crucial term – Masjid – was replaced! History and historical facts are now getting camouflaged or covered-up or quite simply whitewashed! This is a very serious matter and should be a matter of great concern to the citizens of the country.
On earlier occasions, too, RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, had sent a list of recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) demanding a host of changes in its textbooks. Batra asked the NCERT to remove English, Urdu, and Arabic words, a poem by the revolutionary poet Pash and a couplet by Mirza Ghalib, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore, extracts from painter M F Husain’s autobiography… Batra also wanted references to the Mughal emperors as “benevolent”, the BJP as a “Hindu” party, the National Conference as “secular”, an apology tendered by former prime minister Manmohan Singh over the 1984 riots, and a sentence that “nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002” to be all removed.
News reports also stated that Nyas objected to the facts that the Class 11 political science textbook mentions the “massive majority of Congress in 1984” but “does not present the 1977 election details”, the Class 12 political science textbook “terms National Conference of J&K a secular organization”, and the Class 10 English textbook “places nationalism against other ideals” as “an attempt has been made to show a rift between nationality and humanity by citing thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore”. It also wanted the Hindi textbooks to mention that the medieval Sufi mystic Amir Khusru “increased the rift between Hindus and Muslims” which is factually incorrect.
Nyas had on earlier occasions demanded the removal of AK Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation” from the undergraduate syllabus of the University of Delhi, and went to court demanding that Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus” not be sold in India. Their demands were fulfilled! Ramanujan’s essay was removed from DU’s reading list, and Penguin India, the publisher of Doniger’s book, pulled it out from circulation.
It’s relevant to mention here that in 2014, government schools in Gujarat were given six textbooks written by Batra as “supplementary literature” that claimed cars were invented in ancient India and told children to draw an ‘enlarged nation’ to include countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
OTHER MATTERS OF GREAT CONCERN
Going by recent reports, the communal surcharge has reached such alarming levels that one has just to spread the rumour that a Muslim home has stored beef and in the next hour, there’d be bulldozers awaiting to destroy that home, owned by the targeted Muslim family. Can homes get bulldozed and destroyed and ruined in these absolutely barbaric ways? Yes, barbaric is the term for this level of hounding!
Where are we heading? Muslims are getting targeted with one alibi after another. Even Muslim-owned shops can be targeted by the political mafia under any pretext. Recently, Right-Wing goons targeted Muslim-owned shops in Uttarakhand. And last week a Muslim’s textile shop was looted by Hindutva goons in Himachal Pradesh’s Nahan… loot took place in full public view. Also, the lynching of Muslims continues! Where are we heading?
And in the midst of this, Sitamarhi Member of Parliament, Devesh Chandra Thakur’s highly provocative and communal statement that he won’t work for Yadavs and Muslims as they didn’t vote for him! And he seems to be getting away after voicing this bitter, vicious, communal statement.
POET SHAHRYAR: HIS LYRICS IN ‘UMRAO JAAN’ HOLD OUT TO THIS DAY
Akhlaq Mohammad Khan, better known by his takhallus, Shahryar, was born on 16 June 1936. I recall meeting the Aligarh-based poet-academic Shahryar in New Delhi around 2004. Incidentally, his family also belonged to my ancestral qasba Aonla. Also, he knew my Aligarh-based younger sister Habiba.
When I was introduced to him as ‘Habiba’s sister’ he looked somewhat taken aback as my sister and I look very different, and uttered rather too spontaneously, “You Habiba’s sister!”
“Yes, I am… she’s my younger sister.”
“But you look so different! She covers her head and you…” With that, he gave a rather disapproving look towards that sleeveless shirt on me, “You two real sisters?”
“Yes, we are real sisters.”
“From the same father?”
“Yes, of course…”
“Same father?”
“Yes… yes…”
“Same father!”
“Yes… at least this is what amma has told us!”
With that, he had a hearty laugh. Yes, he seemed to be equipped with a sense of humour, though he had suffered emotional pain after he’d gone through a messy separation from his spouse after 23 years of marriage. Maybe, it’s that emotional pain and loneliness that emerged in the form of those haunting lyrics and verses… he did talk of those spells of loneliness, that emotional vacuum he was going through.
He’d also sounded philosophical, “Whenever I felt I’m going ahead in life, Allah seemed to pull me down. His ways, so who can question them? But one thing is sure the minute you are going ahead towards achieving success, hurdles come about… I have seen this happen in my life.”
And with that, he also spoke at length on the difficulties that come about with the singleton status! And though there were several stories doing the rounds of his rather colourful lifestyle, whenever I spotted him at those various dos, he was not just all alone but also looked all alone! Yes, he seemed to carry strains of loneliness, though tried to camouflage it by trying to be witty and talkative. He carried a certain attitude… one of those blunt and outspoken sorts. Quite a contrast to the romantic songs he’d penned for the film Umrao Jaan.
Last, when I had spotted Shahryar at one of those receptions, he looked unwell but tried not to dwell on his ill health. Trying to put up a brave front right till the very end. He passed away on 13 February 2012.
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