Why CBSE’s Chopping Of Democratic Politics From its Syllabus is Worrying

When I think about my school days which ended not so long ago, flashes of tiffin boxes, pigtails, and classrooms are the first visuals to run through my mind. School is obviously a memory heavily associated with nostalgia. But close behind is also memories of our political science class, and how it shaped our nascent ideologies and understanding of how the world functions.

Even when I was studying it, I knew that the political science syllabus was transforming my opinions and expanding my knowledge base. A few days ago, while talking to a friend about my school courses, I couldn't help but nerdily gush about this subject. About how honest it was—borderline brave—especially when placed against the backdrop was a politically dire country such as ours. And what made the subject so powerful was the course book—the one from which the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has now removed certain key chapters.

As a part of its move to “rationalise” syllabus in the wake of the pandemic, CBSE has reduced 30 percent of the syllabus of classes 9 to 12. The decision was made on the direction of the Ministry of Human Resource Development to make up for the loss of academics and time caused by the pandemic and the subsequent closure of schools. The chapters reduced include topics like gender, caste, social movements, and even democracy in class 10, citizenship, nationalism and secularism in class 11, and regional aspirations and environment in class 12. While the reduction of syllabus usually brings joy, people online couldn’t help but be critical about this.

Later, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the Union Cabinet Minister for Human Resource Development, clarified in a tweet that this revision was temporary and solely for this academic year.

Before I decided to take political science seriously in high school, my political understanding was minimal, restricted to family political debates and shouty prime time news. As a 15-year-old, I hadn't even considered how essential it was to have an independent political opinion. Back then, political science—or civics as we used to label it—felt like something that didn’t concern me particularly. I knew what terms like democracy, secularism, and nationalism meant in the dictionary, but I didn’t understand their working yet.

But what I learnt through high school changed my mind. Though the concepts were absolute political philosophy and theory, they didn’t solely revolve around the theoretical understanding of a concept. Place them against what’s happening in the country and the world, and they’d come alive to help distinguish the grey boundaries between politically correct and incorrect, and that which is just wrong on all levels.

Using hilariously candid cartoons and news clippings from all the incidents of the past we should be learning from, and chapters whose concepts made it glaringly evident how things were functioning wrong on several different levels, this was one of those rare Indian textbooks that’d actually make sense in the real world.

“We discussed and deliberated over some key concepts, notions and ideas that are essential for complete political understanding (while setting the old syllabus),” explains Professor Ashok Acharya, who teaches at the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi and was a member of the Textbook Development Committee of the original Class 11 political theory book. “A lot of thought went into it, and we tried to equip the students with skills of political thinking from the school level itself so that they could have a better political understanding in the future.”

And honestly, they did succeed to some extent. Because these books didn’t teach you what to think. It taught you how to think—and why you were thinking what you were thinking. As we grow up, we seek better arguments that are about not only what we are studying, but also why we are studying what we are. And here, casual conversation between the book’s recurring characters of a young boy and a girl gave life to concepts that’d otherwise be dry to simply read about. And more importantly, the books weren’t just about abstract concepts of nationalism, justice or secularism; it was also sometimes just about being a decent human.

Obviously, just having these concepts in the book for exams doesn’t guarantee political thought. You could just rote learn them for exams and still not be politically conscious. We all know someone who aced their exams just by doing that. But the problem with arbitrarily erasing chapters—in a pattern which makes it glaringly obvious what they do not want us studying—is that it takes away our power to choose.

“This decision to remove was a little arbitrary and unthought,” adds Acharya. “They did make their move, but so much is left unsaid. Why did they remove these certain chapters specifically? Who did they consult? These questions remain unanswered. There is bureaucratic control all over us, and it is obvious that these subjects threaten those in power.”

Topics like Citizenship and Nationalism need to be studied when the political discourse is rampant with discussions around the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). Secularism and Regional Aspirations are important to be understood at a time when there’s a lot of jingoism going around about forming a Hindu nation, and regional and religious minorities are being persecuted. Learnings from Environment and Natural Resources need to be applied at a time when human actions might be ushering the sixth mass extinction of species and the climate crisis threatens our very survival on this planet.

“Studying these earnestly would prepare students to question their personal and political opinions, and the notions they had about the world,” adds Acharya. “And more importantly, it would prevent the students from having the ‘public opinion’ thrust on them. It would allow them to question and go back and forth in time to figure why these topics were included and debated in the first place.” In an environmentally and socio-politically sensitive time as ours, the reduction of key political chapters may explain what they don’t want us to prioritise right now.

No matter how temporary this might be, as a student who has studied those very chapters, I can’t help but be concerned. Because if you look at history, all arbitrary powers have tried to rewrite it. And while, rewriting textbooks is a necessity as they must always be upgraded to be relevant with time and shed biases we might have held, doing so might be problematic when it comes with a hidden agenda. The least we can then do is question the move.

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