The present note refers to the history lessons and content of the Social Studies (Samaj Vidya) textbooks brought out by the Gujarat Textbook Board. This note is prepared by Shishu Milap, an NGO that has been working on developing alternative social science textbooks that emphasise a learner-centred pedagogy.

The Gujarat Textbook Board books combine distinct sections titled, History, Geography and Civics, into one potpourri called Social Studies. And on the average have something like 38 chapters in each year. Chapters are generally didactic or information-laden. There is little thought given to making it exciting, relevant, or interesting.

Looking at history lessons specifically for the classes 5-7, we have the following observations: 

Class 5 has 33 chapters. In Class 5 under the so-called Vedic Yug, legend and mythology is often conflated with history. The Class 5 textbook in fact starts with the Story of Apala, then goes on to Maitreyi and Yagnavalkya and then Nachiketa. Under the head of “The Age of Epics” the textbook continues with Ram-Bharat Milan (Chapter 4); Shri Rama: The Example of a True Kshatriya (Chapter 5); Vikarna; Karna and Kunti; Shri Krishna and Arjun: the teachings of the Gita, and Krishna-Sudama (Chapter 9). Thus nine out of 35 chapters, with the History section having 19 chapters in all, are devoted to a period that can hardly be called History.Even if one assumed it were History, there could have been some reference or indication to the specific antiquity of the Vedas or the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. There is no such reference except in an overall one page commentary at the beginning of each period.Most of these stories in these chapters, interesting in any another context, tend to take a moralistic tone wondering whether the purpose of the text is moral education from essentially Hindu (unless you equate Hindu with Indian) scriptures, or History as the majority community would like to envision it as.Again even when there are chapters devoted to historical figures like the Buddha, Mahavir Swami, Ashoka, Kalidasa, Harshvardhan, Huen Sang, etc., the style of treatment is valorisation by treating the narratives as essentially a story. But a historical treatment, which shows some consciousness of historiography on the part of the writers, is absent. Probably the previous versions of the book were criticised for making it dry and therefore the story format has been adopted.The same comment is applicable to treatment of historical figures in Class 6 which is devoted to the Medieval Age. – purportedly 8th century AD to 17-18th century AD. Out of the 21 chapters in Class 6 devoted to History (out of a total of 40 chapters, the number of chapters itself is a scandal – but we need not discuss that here), nine are devoted to Saints – all Hindu Saints with the solitary exception of Kabir. The entire Mughal Period gets one chapter in which Akbar and Aurangazeb are squeezed into one (Chapter 13). Among “Muslim royalty related themes”, there is Chapter 8 on Amir Khusro and Allauddin Khilji and Chapter 21 on The Third Battle of Panipat. In the Class 7 textbook on Social Studies, again there are 21 chapters, out of a total of 38, devoted to History per se. All the chapters are devoted to the so-called Modern Age. There are separate chapters --- keeping with its motif of History as biographical narrative --on Bentinck and Rammohan Roy, Laxmibai, Phule Dayandan Saraswati, Ramakrishna Paramahans, Swami Vivekanand, Tilak, Gokhale, Gandhi’s Advent, the Sardar and Nehru, Bose, Tagore but none on Ambedkar. Are there chapters which underscore the theme of Hindu Muslim Unity or the Unity of All religions? There are none in Class 5. In Class 6, chapters on Siddhraj Jaisingh, Guru Nanak, Kabir and Ramanand, and Akbar, ,and to an extent Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh, drive this message. In Class 7, two chapters on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda do this to an extent. A curious chapter called “Aarzi Hakumat” on the Junagadh and Hyderabad episodes misses the opportunity. However amends are made in a chapter in Civics called “The National Spirit”. Are there chapters problematising the problems within Hindu socio-religious structures? Emperor Ashoka (Chapter 15, Class 5), the chapters on Rajendra Chola, Vijaynagar, Ramanand and Kabir, and Akbar in Class 6, and Bentinck and Rammohan Roy (Chapter 3, Class 7), Sahajanand Swami, Brahmo movement and Phule in (Chapter 6, The Reawakening, in Class 7) do this to a reasonable extent. There is again enumeration and some discussion of Casteism and Communalism in the chapter on “The National Spirit”.