Sita Ram Goel on Education in India

“The whole tenor of this tendentious scheme for "national integration" becomes fully explicit in the following fiat from the Ministry of Education: “Characterisation of the medieval period as a dark period or as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is forbidden... My heart sinks at the very idea of such a sinister scheme being sponsored by an educational agency set up by the government of a democratic country. It is an insidious attempt at thought-control and brainwashing....The Ministry of Education of the Government of India has directed the education departments in the States to extend this experiment to school-level text-books of history. And this perverse programme of suppressing truth and spreading falsehood is being sponsored by a state which inscribes Satyameva Jayate on its emblem....The rest is recommendations for telling lies to our children, or for not telling to them the truth at all.”

“This caravan loaded with synthetic merchandise has, however, continued to move forward. Eight years later (1982), it was reported that “History and Language textbooks for schools all over India will soon be revised radically. In collaboration with various state governments the Ministry of Education has begun a phased programme to weed out undesirable textbooks and remove matter which is prejudicial to national integration and unity and which does not promote social cohesion. ... It was pointed out by the leftist professors that the major cause of “communal trouble” was the “bad habit” of living in the past on the part of “our people”. Most of the politicians knew no history and no religion for that matter. They all agreed with one voice that Indian history, particularly that of the “medieval Muslim period”, should be re-written. That, they pleaded, was the royal road to “national integration”.”