The debate between secularism and Hindu nationalism – how India’s textbooks have become the government’s medium for political communication

ABSTRACT Schools and textbooks are significant mediums for the transmission of political ideas. Textbooks therefore reflect the ideology of the day whilst imparting values, goals, and myths to younger generations. This article provides an insight into the nexus between politics, the state, the social contract, and school textbooks in India. It critically highlights the ways in which the discourses of political parties of the (national) Self and Other are invoked and reflected in school textbooks underpinning the parties’ versions of national identity and transmit their wider political messages, with devastating results on the debates about Indian citizenship. There is a clear link between changing political parties at the helm of national and state governments and which school textbooks are in use. The article reviews the textbook politics between 1998 and 2020, focusing in particular on how the present BJP-led government has appointed Hindutva-minded scholars to lead education institutions underpinning the message of India being a Hindu nation. The right wing RSS has been allowed by the Narendra Modi government to influence the formulation of the National Education Policy 2020 as well as suggesting changes to textbooks to push the national discourse of citizenship defined by Hindutva at the Union and State levels. The article adds, theoretically and substantively, to the specific link between education and the current issues of Indian citizenship as the government tries to change the values of India’s constitution. Not many in this generation of Indians think this is abnormal, as this reflects what they have learnt at school and historically been used to shape the hostile mind-set of new generations vis-à-vis their neighbors, and other religious communities. The article evaluates how over the last two decades textbooks of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) interpret government policy objectives and guidelines to depict Indian national identity, internal ethnic and cultural diversity, and citizenship.