To a large extent, school textbooks in India are free from prejudice.
TORONTO: Nobody says that as a society India is free of bias or prejudice. If we were, we would not have had the 1984 and 2002 riots against Sikhs and Muslims (not to mention a few other blots). The people involved in such violence were generally from low-income backgrounds and who, more often than not, were instigated to kill for a few rupees or a bottle of alcohol. That is shameful and I don’t think the majority of Indians are proud of it.
What I am trying to say is these incidents are not the result of what is taught in India’s schools but because of the biases that we hold within our society. To a large extent, school textbooks in India are free from prejudice. We certainly don’t teach our children which religion is better. We don’t say Muslims are bad and so on. But as a society, we are biased and that kind of prejudice and discrimination can be found even in the most advanced of societies.
Manit Parmar
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.
