Itihasa made itihasya...

Understanding urbanization, social change in medieval India

2012-02-11T16:29:00.002+05:30

The class VII NCERT history textbook Our Pasts has a very interesting conceptualization of chapters. While the first few chapters i.e. 2,3 and 4 deal with the political history of medieval India in a more conventional fashion the remainder of the chapters dwell on the social, economic, religious and cultural changes that unfolded in the same period of time. The latter chapters are in effect further elaborations of the first few where it seeks to unravel the processes that shaped medieval India.

In that sense the chapters dovetails rather seamlessly into one another. But at another level, not just the continuities in the chapters but such an arrangement of chapters in a textbook, which is largely thematic, in itself may be puzzling.

I have tried to look at chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 i.e. Towns, Traders and Craftspersons; Tribes, Nomads and Settled Communities; Devotional Paths to the Divine and The making of Regional Cultures as one unit.

A synopsis of these chapters - To summarize the socio-economic process that characterized India for nearly 1000 years - Following the decline of the Guptas numerous groups of settlers beyond the Indian frontier began to move into the sub-continent and within the subcontinent numerous 'tribes' also emerged as caste groups and established political power. (like some of the Gonds, Ahoms mentioned in chapter 7) This apart many dominant peasant groups also assumed political power (the Pallavas, Cholas, Chalukyas etc). With many of the kings building huge temple complexes to secure legitimacy and authority, the temples with its demand for different products starting from grains, textiles, masonary work, metal works etc became the pivot on which a commercial economy developed. Kancipuram, Thanjavur, Aihole can be examples of such towns. Centres which became political and administrative capital of empires and kingdoms like Bidar, Agra, Dacca, Murshidabad also matured as towns of commerce as it catered to the affluent royal and administrative elite. Then there were coastal towns like Surat and Masulipatinam that emerged as bustling trading centres by virtue of being on the coast from where traders from elsewhere also transacted for Indian spices and textiles. With the emergence of the Mughals, it were towns like Surat, Masulipatinam which eclipsed other towns because of their vibrant trade and commerce. These towns later were overshadowed by Calcutta, Madras and Bombay with the advent of Europeans and the success of the British in establishing trading supremacy. In effect three major contexts can be identified in understanding towns in medieval India.

Increasing trade, emergence of towns (centred around temples in the early medieval period explained well in chapter 6 ) where different caste and social groups interfaced also lead to a rethink on the social arrangements that was obtained in early medieval and medieval society.

This resulted in the emergence of socio-religious movement which on the one hand sought to emphasize the need for devotion and surrender to a diety (The Alvars and Nayanmars) without rejecting idol worship or many of the rituals. (Philosophy of Adwaita and Vishistadwaita) But on the other hand many rejected the rituals and idol worship so associated with Hinduism and established sects like Veerashaivism, Sikhism and Kabirpanthis. The latter two established by Guru Nanak and Kabir were also influenced by the Islamic tenets. Both these socio-religious movements formed the dialectic that informed the rather nebulous feature of Hinduism. Language played an important aspect in these movements for Sanskrit was jettisoned for regional tongues (Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Hindi) in which many of their ideas and thoughts were communicated. In that sense the Bhakthi movement also resulted in promotion of many a regional languages.While some of the heterodox anti-ritualistic and anti-brahmin sects did get political patronage i.e. Sikhism, Veerashaivism and hence prospered but many of them continued to serve a sizeable percentage of masses which sought to undermine Brahmanical hegemony, even without overt political patronage.
This broadly was the socio-economic process that characterized much of India roughly from 600 AD to 1700 AD.

Process to be carried out - A teacher can factor the above coordinates in her discussion with the students so that the larger picture is not lost sight of. The following two worksheets 1 and 2 (viewing them in Google docs results in formatting errors but once downloaded it should be fine) can be used to help better understanding. The first WS gives them extracts of verses from different Bhakthi poets. The teacher can divide the class into small groups and students can collectively discuss the poems and unravel its devotional or change/egalitarian character, as the case may be. The other worksheet is to help children identify the three broad processes that facilitated in the emergence and sustenance of town in medieval India. The teacher also needs to remember that these three process of urbanization are not mutually exclusive and needs to highlight this to the students. As such I have sought to base these worksheets on the information, analysis, posers, questions found in the textbook itself. So as such there is no need for any further reference but if it is possible then a teacher can ask students find out more on the traditional arts and crafts of India like Warli Paintings, the metal works of Gonds, Bankura asses, Jaipur blue pottery etc. It should also be put across as a question whether these craft works which gave so much of an identity to a culture would be something which the students would like to learn today and whether they would be willing to depend on such crafts for their livelihoods. Or are these crafts meant only for people who are 'less capable' or 'endowed' who cannot go to schools and colleges?

Barefoot College...its cognitive and sociological relevance

2011-10-17T22:17:00.000+05:30

A presentation by Bunker Roy the founder of Barefoot College, Tilonia in Rajasthan at a TED conference whose arguments and contentions and the way his vision and convictions have so actually panned out, materialized and converged at his college, only augments and further bolsters the perspective I had tried to put across in my previous post. Three cheers for Barefoot college!!! I would imagine colleges such as these appear to be far more relevant in terms of its cognitive appropriateness and sociological relevance than an IIT, an IIM or even a JNU for that matter. Hope one day I get to visit this place and glean more about its pedagogic processes and the cognitive and social implications of its curriculum. Here is the video: Its inspiring.

Globalization, caste and its cognitive-social impact

2011-07-26T10:44:00.006+05:30

Globalization as a conceptual category to explain various facets of change that this contemporary world defined by fractions, attritions, divisions (and much of it violent) is witnessing, emerges as a useful shorthand. Indeed the very bloody attritions and convulsions, widening social, economic, gender and cultural schisms and disparities themselves are undoubtedly aggravated, if not precipitated, by it.

But then being a shorthand, many of the actual and finer workings of globalization's negative impact is often missed and inadequately understood. I for one particularly feel that the educational consequences in general and globalization's cognitive impact has not been adequately and sufficiently recognized and understood.

That globalization with its determining attribute of single division of labour, not just in the context of the developed world like North America or Western Europe but even for a country like India, results in "white collarization" of our economy and society, even as it keeps many a societies in Africa or indeed many sizeable pockets in India itself in the domains of "primary" economy is a fact that is becoming evident. Nevertheless I wonder to what extent it is being seen as such. Another aspect which is muted in much of the discourse on globalization is the impact which it has on people even in developed economies of North America and Western Europe, seen as the main force propelling and unleashing this juggernaut. The widening social schisms and disparities in the west, now so glaringly visible, are essentially triggered by the closure of many big and small industries. Jobs, more so the "blue collar" variety, consequently leave the temperate shores of North America to the tropical regions of India, China and South East Asia. Within India itself certain regions and across certain caste/class/linguistic demographies we see similar shifts. Some 20, 30 years back most of the domestic help in Delhi were from Tamil Nadu but now most of them happen to be from Bengal, Orissa and even Bangladesh. On some cursory observation and enquiry I learn that Tamils now have "graduated" to service, clerical chores and are hence seen to be more developed, benefiting from the developmental programmes of which schooling itself was seen to be an important component. Now in the service domain of clerks, call centres employees, sales representatives in malls and departmental stores, they earn more ( so we are made to believe) and importantly it is more dignified than labour intensive chores.

Apart from such perceptible changes in the political economy of both America and India, what is missed are the changes that has been wrought in the educational scenario in both these regions with more and more people seeking entry into college for employment as avenues in "blue collar" domains disappear. Hence couple of decades back when in the US you could more than secure your existence as a truck driver with fair degree of comforts, presently to have the same level of material living you need to move up the value chain of education to secure jobs that will pay you more or rather to pay the same to maintain the existing levels of comfort enjoyed years back. The so called low end jobs of plumbers, carpenters, taxi drivers, etc now is the domain of the immigrants mostly Hispanics and Asians, if not the traditionally marginalized and deprived African Americans, who work on subsistence wages.

The result of all these is to promote a cultural economy which privileges and rewards a purely cerebral world where ability, success and in fact one's survival itself depends upon all your ability to abstract and figure out the world entirely in your head. It more concretely means skills of accounting, coding, report writing (much of it workings occurring only in one's head) all so non-reflective and mechanistic, alone dominates, determines and defines learning.

Literacy itself has been so reduced as a means of mere abstraction, a move towards making it purely instrumental, an adjunct, an enabler to sustain the techno-rationalist world that so dominates us. The enlightenment era defined notion of science and knowledge continues to shape our trajectory of development and growth, which schools, colleges and universities thoughtlessly and mechanistically facilitate and shape.

This is of course not to suggest that literacy and schooling in itself have no significance. Literacy does suggest better abstract, de-contextualized thinking, 'liberating' one from mere memorization and rote as means to understand and learn (Jack Goody). But to make one's future, a future of hope, dignity and well-being entirely subject to ability to 'perform well' in 'studies', in school and college in my view unjust and unfair. Often our worthy educationists, scholars and economists find fault with incompetency of teachers (more so government schools and government school teachers) in their failure to enable children/students to abstract thinking and their shoddy, poor skills in mathematics, science and language.

In my view the 'reality' is far more complex. I would respond at two levels to this argument. Cognitive processes take their time to mature and the cognitive ability to abstract, interpolate, extrapolate and think beyond the concrete does not and need not emerge in the context of academia alone. (Howard Gardener) These qualities of cognitive abstraction, de-concretized thinking can also be seen in domains of cognition spurred by body-kinesthetics that inform our ability to manipulate objects, tools, instruments that have historically helped us in building and making things that add value to our existence and indeed sustain it. Included here would be the work of the farmers, weavers, potters, masons, carpenters etc.

Secondly related to the above if learning (the way popularly defined, something the process of literacy and schooling is seen to provide) therefore manifests itself in other domains as well, but by making an exclusive virtue of schooling and 'great' academic performance, prevents an individual from developing a mode of learning appropriate to her sense of well-being and personality. Modernity and globalization has further rendered all such professions and the intrinsic learning embedded in these practices redundant, injuring a person's confidence, self-respect and dignity. All forms of work, indeed learning, which evokes from investments in physical labour has been demoted as "inferior" , "inadequate" and indeed when someone hardly gets much returns after staking her blood and sweat into a profession as vital as farming, (or say weaving or pottery) it results in engendering a society fraught with tensions, frustrations, angst, alienation which ultimately manifests in violence. For the process of "white collarization", in itself an unrealistic and impractical proposition, becomes the only means of satisfying one's aspiration to lead a life of some creature comfort and happiness. And inability to achieve and succeed in "white collarizing" herself is stigmatized as a failure, shutting the possibility of a right to life with dignity without "doing well in studies". (This aspect has been very well put across in the rivetting documentary on schooling titled 'Schooling the world')

In the Indian context, the above process paradoxically is not new. For our caste system in many ways implied a similar mind-set privileging those with skills of reading, writing and marginalizing those who toiled with their hands and brawns. Only those who had all the scriptural, doctrinaire knowledge were deemed worthy of being richly rewarded and not those who sought to lead their existence in doing things of temporal and earthly significance. The insert of an advertisement (on the top) by the Indian Newspaper Society against the new wage board recommendation for people in the press which questions the wisdom of paying peons and drivers in several thousands, betrays this 'caste/abstraction alone matters' thinking that dominates the discursively constituted debates of democracy, equality, freedom and development. *

Gandhi, the visionary that he was, rightly suggested the need for a curriculum in schools which does not undermine the value of labour and the intelligence as evidenced in handicrafts and farming. Alas...our so called democratic agenda, our struggle for equality and indeed our modernity, has been entirely hijacked and colonized by such positivist epistemologies. Informed by discourses that contend schools and colleges as the only true liberators placing us on course of rapid growth and development, any argument to the contrary would be seen as perverted, shallow, antediluvian "nonsense", to their own sacrosanctual "commonsense"!

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*Of course I also recognize that social movements in India steering many Dalit groups would on the contrary suggest such an argument as being Brahmanical and a thinly veiled attempt to ensure status-quo. Endowed with cultural capital it is perhaps all right of folks of my sorts to pontificate in such vein. And again would I accept my own children if they were "academic failures" and saw in them no "further ability" to be anything but a gardner? Well at some levels being a school teacher myself and not being in a position to do anything better empathetically and enjoy, I have myself been a victim of this cognitive-social shift. Though teaching strictly speaking is indeed a very cerebral act but given the trivialization of schooling and "learning" itself , teaching as Michael Apple and Henry Giroux repeatedly argue has been "blue collarized" and hence hardly of much value and significance.

A version on Indian history...

2011-06-06T18:07:00.005+05:30

This I got as a forward. Please read it for more than a good laugh. I for one, felt it is in many ways a 'smart' and 'creative' reading and re-reading of India - past and present. It is very similar to the world history post I had published few years back in the humour section. Now could a IX standard kid really do this or someone of the likes of Gautam Bhatia behind it...??

A Brief History of India

As written by a Std IX schoolboy, with all the original spellings.

The original inhabitants of ancient India were called Adidases, who lived in two cities called Hariappa and Mujhe-na-Darao. These cities had the best drain system in the world and so there was no brain drain from them.

Ancient India was full of myths which have been handed down from son to father. A myth is a female moth. A collection of myths is called mythology, which means stories with female caricatures. One myth says that people in olden times worshipped monkeys because they were our incestors.

In olden times there were two big families in India . One was called the Pandava and the other was called the Karova. They fought amongst themselves in a battle called Mahabharat, after which India came to be known as Mera Bharat Mahan.

In midevil times India was ruled by the Slave Dienasty. So named because they all died a nasty death.

Then came the Tughlaqs who shifted their capital from Delhi because of its pollution.

They were followed by the Mowglis. The greatest Mowgli was Akbar because he extinguished himself on the battlefield of Panipat which is in Hurryana. But his son Jehangir was peace loving; he married one Hindu wife and kept 300 porcupines.

Then came Shahajahan who had 14 sons. Family planning had not been invented at that time. He also built the Taj Mahal hotel for his wife who now sleeps there.

The king sent all his sons away to distant parts of India because they started quarrelling. Dara Seiko was sent to UP, Shaikh Bhakhtiyar was sent to J & K, while Orangezip came to Bombay to fight Shivaji.

However, after that they changed its name to Mumbai because Shivaji's sena did not like it. They also do not like New Delhi, so they are calling it Door Darshan.

After the Mowglis came Vasco the Gama. He was an exploder who was circumcising India with a 100 foot clipper. Then came the British. They brought with them many inventions such as cricket, tramtarts and steamed railways.

They were followed by the French who brought in French fries, pizzazz and laundry. But Robert Clive drove them out when he deafened Duplex who was out membered since the British had the queen on their side.

Eventually, the British came to overrule India because there was too much diversity in our unity. The British overruled India for a long period. They were great expotents and impotents. They started expoting salt from India and impoting cloth. This was not liked by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted to produce his own salt. This was called the swedish moment. During this moment, many people burnt their lion cloths in the street and refused to wear anything else.

The British became very angry at this and stopped the production of Indian testiles.

In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi was married to one wife. Soon after he became the father of the nation in 1942, he started the Quiet India moment, so named because the British were quietly lootaoing our country. In 1947, India became free and its people became freely loving. This increased our population.

Its government became a limited mockery, which means people are allowed to take the law in their own hands with the help of the police.

Our constipation is the best in the world because it says that no man can be hanged twice for the same crime. It also says you cannot be put in prison if you have not paid your taxis. Another important thing about our constipation is that it can be changed easily for cast people who are very powerool. This is not possible with the British constipation because it is not written on paper.

The Indian Parlemint consists of two houses which are called lower and higher. This is because one Mr Honest Abe said that two houses divided against itself cannot withstand. So Pandit Nehru asked the British for freedom at midnight since the British were afraid of the dark. At midnight, on August 15, there was a tryst in Parlemint in which many participated by wearing khaki and hosting the flag.

Recently in India , there have been a large number of scams and a plaque. it can be dangerous because many people died of plaque in Surat . Scams are all over India .

One of these was in Bihar where holy cows were not given anything to eat by their elected leader. The other scam was in Bofor which is a small town in Switzerland. In this, a lot of Indian money was given to buy a gun which can shoot a coot.

Presently India has a coalishun government made up of many parties, left, right and centre and Raja's like olden days who have vast income and wealth.
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It has started to libertise the economy using liberty garments.. This means that there is now no need for a licence as the economy will be driven by itself. India is also trying to become an Asian tiger because its own tigers are being poached.

Another important event year was the Shark meeting at Malas Dive. At this place, shark leaders agreed to share their poverty, pollution and population.

We also have Amma in South, Didi in East, Behenji in North, Jawaani Aunty in Dilli, and Forin Madam in Center. Many people in india have wife for home entertinmint.

We are still following our great tredishun to welcome guests, respect ladies and feel them when they are at home. That is why also treat our terrist friend nicely when they bomb parliment and Tajmahal hotel built by mowglis.That is why Mera Bhaarat Jai Ho also got oskar in fillum. Even those who play criket get beeg money because of poorness in Indi

Facilitating understanding of architecture for children in its social and political context – Rulers and Buildings

2011-04-03T19:16:00.002+05:30

There is this fascinating chapter in Our Pasts, the NCERT history textbook for class VII titled ‘Rulers and Buildings’. It tries to contextualize art and architecture in terms of its political and social import. Number of important features are highlighted to underscore the fact that monuments and buildings were built by monarchs across

India

, across religious denominations to make political statements. Some of the aspects that this chapter highlights are the following (the last one is my own reading which can also be added since coins can themselves be seen in terms of its artistic attributes) :

a. Access, controlling and facilitating water supply….

b. Building places of worship, palaces and monuments in all grandeur which invokes the monarch’s claimed proximity to the divine …

c. Incorporating symbols and methods of architecture from different cultures to indicate accommodation and tolerance…i.e. use of brackets in pillars by Mughals which was influenced by the brackets seen in Hindu temples or the use of Chattris which was basically a Rajput architectural feature…

d. Facilitating trade and monetizing trade through minting of coins with the king’s image and insignia

The above features can in simple terms describe the ways in which powerful kings and dynasties across time in

India

sought to legitimize their regimes. These symbolic means were used by the rulers across the world and not just

India

to sustain their authority invoking means other than use of overt force and terror. This in fact is one point I have been making repeatedly to underscore the fact that many aspects of what we term as culture – religion, art, architecture is not unconnected from the discourse of power and therefore in history we cannot look at the domain of culture as being autonomous from economic, social and political context. Despite the effort made in the NCERT textbooks towards this end, the understanding that culture is independent and separate from the domain of politics and power, from what I gather from interactions with both teachers and students, continues to hold its sway. This is of course not to suggest that everything about art and architecture are reducible to the discourse of power. The execution of many of the monuments with its unique architectural features truly reflect the refined artistic capabilities and sensibilities of both the ruling classes as well as the labouring classes who toiled to create such magnificent monuments. But the larger picture should not be lost sight of in our eulogizing of their aesthetics.

After highlighting the above features and aspects of monarchy, the teacher can use two activity sheets which I have included to reinforce these basic ideas. The first one is to ensure that students have read the text carefully describing some of the architectural principles that the Mughals followed in constructing their forts and palaces and designing their towns. For example the fact that Diwan i am is West facing is anomalous for as the chapter says Shahjahan built Diwan-i-am facing East so that as in prayers when Muslims pray towards West he positioned himself in that direction to make his connection with the divine telling to the people. And likewise the nobility were denied access to the river save Dara Sikoh.

The second worksheet comprises of numerous photographs which are making statements about the linkages between the political rule and engineering and architectural feats accomplished and facilitated by these rulers. One can make copies of these and ask students, individually or in groups to determine which of these pictures are connected to the features and aspects (summarized above and to be discussed and debated with kids before hand) given in the chapter. Many features also overlap. It would, rather a teacher should, in the process of adding more meat to this fascinating chapter also, possibly through power point presentation, highlight some of the important monuments, temples and forts of India and its architectural merits. – i.e. parts of a temple, structure of a fort, features of Sarcenic architecture, the Hindu and Buddhist influence on Sarcenic architecture etc. If such a presentation precedes this activity, this worksheet which also involves highlighting the names of these monuments and places as well, would help the students to make their task easier.

My idea here is also to help kids to enable abstract thinking and arriving at more complex reading of history going beyond using mnemonic approach of highlighting and writing features in neatly stated ‘points’ and going beyond memorization.

Activity sheet 1 Activity sheet 2

(Some formating error may occur on google doc but once you download in MS Word, matters should be fine...)

Understanding Cholas - thru contextualization...

2010-11-22T11:36:00.006+05:30

This was yet another effort to contextualize certain epochs and specific events that transpired in such epochs - let it be accomplishments of a monarch in a battle, construction of monuments, development of arts etc. In this instance it was to bring about the wider social, environmental and economic processes to relief to the advantage of students of class VIII in the school I was teaching some months back. We had taken them to what was during the reign of medieval Cholas i.e. Chozhas, an important urban centre i.e. Thanjavur, which is located in the Kavery delta region of Tamil Nadu. Today as well Thanjavur is an important town and headquarters of its eponymous district but continues to derive much of its fame and glory from its medeival past where its famous Brihadesvara temple built by Rajaraja Chozha occupies centre stage. Incidentally this year also marked the 1000th anniversary of the temple celebrated by government with a 1000 member dance performance within its precinct. (which in my view failed to awe or inspire.)

The Kavery Delta region was and is the food bowl of Tamil Nadu famed for its ponni rice and sugarcane. Not just Thanjavur but the near town of Kumbakonam and the still bigger town of Tiruchy formed the most urbanized region in entire south India. But most of urbanization (though not all perhaps) in ancient and medeival times basically centred around temples. Hence the Kavery delta regions comprising of Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, Tiruchy and Gangaikondachozhapuram may have the highest per capita temples in the whole of south India.

During my interactions with the kids lot of things were discussed as part of our effort to contextualize. Going around in the bus the lush paddy fields were making its own statements which I urged the kids to take cognizance of. That the Kaveri delta region was high on production of surplus became evident. Also brought to their notice was the network of canals criss-crossing the countryside. This as such added further to productivity of the region. The rather dominant concentration of the Brahmins and the agrahara in this part of the region, certainly during the Chozhaa period (850 - 1250 CE approx) was the third aspect that was highlighted and figured earlier in the classroom discussions on Chozhaas. Finally we also looked at what such high productivity could also mean in terms of possibilities of taxes for the state and while discussing the temples, I also debated the social changes that emerged in much of the Deccan around this time. The new dominant peasant classes sought to assert political power and in this endeavour I highlighted the temporal significance of the temples, the patronage of priestly classes and how all these legitimized power of these kings, who were basically from the dominant peasant communities. (recall that this aspect i had also intervened in the form of a play. Click here for the post) Hence, the combination of environmental factors, political and societal intervention through the construction of canals and check dams, the presence of agraharas , the battles waged by the kings and the loot and plunder that accrued thus and the construction of temples all were linked in some kind of a dynamism which helped in the creation of a very powerful state in south India. (Two chapters from the Eklavya social studies textbook of class VII gives the best write up on these social and political processes - Click here and here)

One bunch of kids presented this understanding rather well...

So here it was...the classroom interactions, the trip to the various temples, our appreciation of the temple art, architecture - the vaastushastra of temple construction viz. the vimanam, gopuram, mandapa, antarala, garbagriham and the sui generis artistic style of the Chozhaa iconography - the Natraja for example. These helped me as well to get a deeper perspective on south Indian history and it was fun. As is probably evident, not much of names, dates and chronology of the Chozhas was discussed. We did not ignore them but my effort was to understand and help children understand factors, the macro picture that impinges on the micro. But this often impacted many kids in terms of their inability to understand such not so visible factors shaping the course of events. Many would comfortably give the names of kings, dates, temples, reel out data like features of administration etc. Whereas when trying to understand the context and the larger picture and connect the dots between these and the 'cold' and 'simplistic' descriptions of an empire, they often floundered. But I could sense that notwithstanding these difficulties all of them seriously shared my enthusiasm to look at history in a more processesual fashion Really miss the wonderful time I had learning myself and help the kids learn.

CBSE's Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation : comprehensively flawed

2010-05-11T11:39:00.016+05:30

In the euphoria among the progressive circles over the passage of the Right to education Bill (RTE), many do not appear to have taken cognizance of or are perhaps oblivious to a more regressive directive of CBSE. This directive of CBSE called CCE expects teachers to be constantly evaluating (you can even call it policing) their students under so many parameters. This I argue is antithetical to any genuine learning and understanding. It once again puts tremendous pressure on school teachers who are more likely to be spending much of their school hours (and post school hours as well) filling in details and churning out data in vast quantities. Teachers will be left with little time to dwell on any subject or topic, to be creative, to experiment and engage in any meaningful dialogue with children. Rather than helping students to be deeper learners, thoughtful and reflective individuals, measures such as CCE with its emphasis on mere generation of data and numbers, reduces learning to a superficiality.

CCE (Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation) meant to be implemented in classes IX and X, is actually another pathetic attempt by the so called advocates of the ‘managerial approach’ to education/learning to quantify learning and indeed quantify everything. Now before I’m accused of being a romantic anarchist where I think evaluation in any form is a pointless exercise and is a stigmatic endeavor, I have already written in one of my earlier post (click here) on exam reforms that examinations/tests are not in themselves an issue. Only when we have some form of evaluation the learning process becomes comprehensive and complete. But the question is what kind of assessment do we bring in and towards what end and who decides the form of evaluation. And importantly assessment itself should be predicated on certain quality of teaching/instructions in the class room which makes assessment acceptable for the community of students. The idea of CCE is merely to come up with numbers that is meant more to bandy about the 'greatness', 'uniqueness', 'successes' and 'pass percentages' of schools and to be used by policy makers, government and politicians to suggest that India is fast becoming a 'learned' 'knowledge' society. In lieu of making Class X exams optional, by our suave, glib honorable Minister of Education Kapil Sibal (the toast of the corporate, liberal, global chatterati) we have yet another ill thought of, shallow piece of bureaucratic/managerial directive that far from making or helping a teacher (and students) to be creative, exploratory and experimental reduces them to a mere cog in the school educational wheel. And the latter has increasingly and exclusively come to be seen, assessed and measured through the discursive prism of management/managerial approach.

Under the new directive, in the name of systematizing evaluation process, CBSE has brought in place a whole gamut of evaluation criteria which goes beyond the 'mere' testing of academic proficiency alone and also seeks to evaluate a child's attitude, values and temperament! A whole lot of rubrics/parameters like tests, reports, oral tests, visual tests, interviews, projects etc to be carried out through what is called formative and summative assessments have been put in place for each and every subject and the 101 topics/lessons that constitutes or defines a subject. The logic behind this being that it is far more prudent and justifiable to judge and evaluate a student over a period of time with a series of tests and other means rather than one final exam. The idea is to de-stress students and take away the fear of exams. Never mind if in the process we can make a travesty of learning and reduce the subjects into divisible but 'comprehensible' units, where the subtleties, complexities and the hard work involved in figuring them out are brushed aside. But in any case these internally evaluated grades are not going to be given much credibility by any schools for admissions to + 1 because any internally evaluated grades sheet will always be suspect for the objective abilities of teacher are always suspect. Only marks secured from writing a public examination will carry greater credibility. So much for making class X exams optional.

In effect all these formative and summative assessment translates into notebook thickness of data collection work for teachers. Now what are the implications and repercussions of such a requirement to be fulfilled by teachers in all schools affiliated to CBSE? Evidently such a system of evaluation, will leave the teachers very little time for anything else. For in this directive the anxiety to evaluate seems to have colonized all other classroom transactions. Even the weightage and marks to be allotted for these parameters are determined by CBSE. Their mantra is standardization and uniformity. Secondly teachers, who as such are removed from any decision making process and are made to feel utterly powerless in every sense of the term, are further going to feel alienated with such schemes of evaluation which gives no scope for individuality or autonomy. In all this the message that is been given to a teacher is: “You are not trustworthy”. Thirdly is the politics and philosophy of this directive. What to me is more pertinent here is where is CBSE (like everyone else these days) getting such ideas from and what are the ramifications of such ideas and thinking. Processes like CCE's are also in place in many a western countries. It is the belief of many that the west (and now perhaps the far east as well) with its markets, industrial and technological might, achieved all these and more not simply because of education but more due to the managerial approach to education. In India, where we are yet to get over our post-colonial inferiority and where the gloss, glare and glitz of a Tokyo, a Shanghai or a New York spur our imagination and fantasies, with whom we have to 'catch up', such 'reforms' therefore in domains of school education along with entry of foreign universities are seen to be critical and vital. After all we need a labour force which intrinsically and unquestioningly accepts the logic of the market. As such this perspective carries with it so much of legitimacy, it is so 'commonsensical' that any attempt to critique it would invite the criticism of being perverse and perverted.

I nevertheless seek to critique the above and to further bolster my view, I would bring to one's attention this brief but brilliantly argued article in a recent issue of EPW (VOL 45 No. 18 May 01 - May 07, 2010) where the authors critique the gyanshala model - a model which seeks to univerzalise education in india through the much bandied PPP model- (click here to learn more on gyanshala). This has been applauded and welcomed by a large section of scholars and media. Coming to the implications and premise of the CCE, as the authors argue in context of the Gyanshala approach - “measurable student achievement became a key marker to define education and educational outcomes to plan, predict, measure and compare the role of education in enhancing the economic growth of different national economies. Deeper engagement in education for creating new types of citizens, for justice and equality, and education as a human right are deemed economically irrelevant, and thus unimportant to policymakers". Similar to what the authors - Sadhna Saxena and Manish Jain argue - I contend that this CCE diktat from CBSE has similar ramification that affronts the teaching community and reduces them to mere receptacles of guidelines, directions, framework etc. Basing their arguments on educational thinker Michael Apple, the authors argue - "...the doctrine of efficiency view teachers as merely rent-seeking agents. With a large unemployed labour, teachers are seen as an easily available human resource, a replaceable cog, as one input among many whose purpose is defined with reference “to quantifiable outputs, namely, the learning achievement of students” leading to greater workplace productivity. The management model of education adopted by Gyanshala treats teachers as workers in the education assembly line, who perform the teaching/learning tasks decided by the management. In it, the teacher lacks any training and agency to deliberate on the curriculum, to conceive, plan and design teaching and learning strategies for specific groups and individuals. The curriculum supervisors break the “complex jobs into specified actions with specified results”. The “management controls both pace of work and skill” of teachers to attain specified learning goals set for students."

So in effect such CCE measures, among the many more regulations in place and also apart from the whims and fancies that private school teachers are subject to by school managements, are an insult to the dignity and self-respect of teachers where they are sought to be emptied of their agency and subjectivities. That many a school teachers are inept, take their work lackadaisically, etc maybe true but one has to seek the reasons for it, reasons which are complex, rooted largely in historical and sociological factors.

As I have been repeatedly arguing here on my site, learning is a fuzzy and slow process. And teaching essentially is an art where each teacher evolves and devises unique pedagogical methods which can and does serve larger social requirements and functions but it is essentially an uniquely individualistic enterprise. The CBSE needs to be looking at means for broad basing learning by ensuring that schools cater to the individualistic nature of learning of each child. Towards that, allow teachers to explore, experiment and importantly trust the community of teachers as people who are capable of self-reflection, restraint, innovativeness and who can evolve a suitable form of assessment and give incentives for teachers to be so. But instead CBSE puts in place CCE. All these are carried in the name of greater accountability, fairness, professionalism and efficiency. My take is this will actually be counter-productive and only wean more and more well meaning, capable and motivated people from teaching profession. (here guess I can include myself who quit teaching in disgust or at least have taken a temporary break from teaching). Even the students will end of feeling being constantly judged for each and everything that happens in the class and school. In light of the above, guess CBSE should be rechristened as Central Board of Secondary Examinations!!!

In the above context I dread the implications of the RTE. If such management approach is going to inform all the policies related to schooling, teaching and teachers are to be damned to levels unimaginable and perhaps irreparable.
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PS - Given the IT frenzy that has caught the fancy, imagination, dreams (and whatever that exists of us) of many in India, this CCE appears all set to be a godsend for many in IT industry. Just discovered some small time venture from Dehradun, of all the places, who already have a software solution in place to resolve this dilemma for teachers. ( Check their site out here). Bet more of the established players in Bangalore are already booking their deals. In this teachers have basically to enter data into slots for all the different parameters, criterias, checklists, forms etc and presto! their job load gets reduced by 90% as this site claims!! Talk about the entrepreneurial spirit in India never to miss an marketing opportunity anywhere and the innovativeness of IT honchos to monetize this 'daring' 'bold' venture of CBSE. Can already see the stocks of Educomps, Edurites and Edus...whatever, rising!!

Towards experiential history - The need to include working skills in history curriculum

2010-03-23T20:40:00.023+05:30

Over the years while dealing with different chapters in history, we come across constant references to occupations and trade where artisans evidently had a major role to play. Like for example we constantly read about textiles, jewellery, metalware, pottery either being unearthed in archaeological digs or references to all this in varied literary sources. All these are meant to indicate the richness of material culture of a given period and societies. And there is farming too. If even today nearly 60% of India is directly or indirectly dependent on farming...in the past, societies across the world were largely agricultural. Surplus could never be taken for granted till the 1800s and it is no accident that much of the rapid, intense and extensive technological changes leading to shifts in occupational profile happened only from the beginnings of the 19th century.

But more to the point here - some time back few kids were doing a project on Mughal textiles - the chikans, zardozi, brocades etc which Mughal culture inspired and I was at a total loss to explain what exactly the description (taken from wiki and rest from the net) meant for neither I or the kids had any idea as to how the looms work (i.e. the wefts and warps, jacquards etc). Likewise in another class when the kids were doing a 'project' on Greco-Roman pottery , I really could not explain to the kids how exactly the amphoras were made and how its unique reddish hue was obtained.

So as a teacher and almost all my students deal with history with practically little feel, understanding and ability to apply or create things and connect to those aspects of our existence which shapes our culture and indeed our very existence. What sort of history teaching would this be? Incomplete, un-empathetic, superficial where at best children can be helped to intellectualize something which needs to be experienced at certain physical levels. Professions and work such as farming, weaving, masonry, pottery, carpentry and smithy shaped our existence. In my view nothing can help children better appreciate these different professions and the skill, expertise, energy, focus, dedication, hard work that goes into making things by helping...nay compelling them to pick up skills such as weaving, spinning, farming etc in some measure. Its their products and outcomes which shaped (and shapes) our collective identities, our imagination and ergo our nation. For example while we talk so much of Mysore or Benares silk or the jewel like execution of sculptures on the walls of a Chalukya or Pallava temple, which gives us so much sense of rootedness and pride but do children (and teachers) really realize what all goes into making of all these? and importantly the experience of making these?

While we do have schools emphasizing art and certain skills like pottery and carpentry and even farming but as a history teacher I feel it needs to be historicized and the experience which children gain in trying to weave a cloth, or make some pottery or forge some weapons... be used as important learning objectives in history teaching. Detailed textual understanding of these processes will hardly give children a sense of connect to the products which we routinely use and indeed abuse.

In these days of conspicuous consumption people have no appreciation of how things get made and the conditions of work under which these get made. There is so much of taken-for-grantedness and contempt for people behind these occupations, if not for the things and products that emerge from such painstaking process. These in reality involve so much of creativity, observation and multiple-intelligences . It is the disdainful attitude towards these professions which actually nurtures caste mindset in India. History like i always tell my kids is meant to sensitize and make us alive to the world around us. And to do that we need to 'experientialize' history by giving the kids the ability, means and feel of things like farming, weaving, masonry etc that shaped and shapes our existence. Gandhi indeed was implying something similar, I would imagine, in urging for the need to bring in craft education in our curriculum.

So let us include skills like farming, weaving, pottery etc in our history curriculum and not merely in art and SUPW periods, where we can bring in farmers, artisans to schools to instruct and interact with kids. As my experience shows evaluating kids in this domain will help many who may not have the cognitive-linguistic ability to write well in exams and homework but can hone and display their prowess, application, understanding practically in these domains using their sensory-motor and bodily kinesthetic intelligence.

Now here are some visuals to add some 'super colour' to an another wise dull prose where I conjure the kind of responses I'm likely to get from some of my old students when compelled to 'go dirty' and 'sweat' it out on the way of learning history!!! Click on the images to see captions clearly...ensai!!

What this website is all about

2010-01-16T11:56:00.004+05:30

The domain of social sciences in India, history in particular, is in a state of crisis. It's a subject hardly pursued by anyone, by any 'self-respecting' person if I may add, for not only is history seen to be useless, irrelevant in terms of its epistemological status (for what use is past and its study?) but seen to have little economic value. While there may be some merit in the latter argument, the former perception emerges out of erroneous understanding of the subject matter of history. With my experience in teaching history at different schools largely in mofussil parts of south India I have discovered (and discovering in a slow and painful way, I must add) that history can be everything that a mathematics or sciences could be and more viz it could be stimulating, relevant and yet complex.

Here I seek to share all my efforts in nurturing historical thinking among the young minds of different schools, and put it across on the web which I hope will be a forum of all like minded teachers in India - Teachers and even others who feel that history as a subject in itself is not an issue but more how people perceive it and teach it.

I'm looking at creating a forum for all those interested in popularising history in a fashion which is not chauvinistic, jingoistic but yet history is seen to be romantic, exciting and importantly seen as an imperative to build citizenship qualities and an important tool to fathom the social, political, economic and cultural issues that are transpiring in the society today.

The idea is to dialogue amongst school teachers and others interested in discovering newer framework which are child appropriate and help children/students to the relevance of history. However if one is looking for ready made lesson plans, replicable worksheets etc this is hardly the website for you. The thrust is more towards understanding the concepts, themes in history rather than looking at history through the model of political chronological narratives.

The idea is to share our experiments in history teaching where we can go wrong but nevertheless such failures helps us to better understand what history is and how best children can learn and understand the relevance and importance of history.

R S Krishna, M.Phil [Modern Indian History (JNU)

Helping children to visualize ancient India

2010-01-14T11:08:00.039+05:30

Photo-prints of murals/frescoes at Ajanta, copies of which were given to students

According to more progressive pedagogic wisdom, children are supposed to learn and understand better if the teaching process is made more hands on. Over the years i have been trying to do precisely so with history. But one is not too certain if making history more experiential in itself brings about learning in terms of reasoning, identification, analysis and application. I suppose such learning is predicated on certain measure of language skills, observation skills and listening skills.
In the absence of latter I would imagine, activities which attempts to bring in higher order thinking skills, comes to naught. But perhaps it is also possible to look at this matter the other way viz. skills, either the 'higher order or lower order' all develops simultaneously and the issue is whether we challenge the cognitive domain of a child in such a fashion that all the skills are spurred into operation. It can be argued that skills, even the alleged lower order skills are intertwined with 'higher order' skills and therfore even observation, listening skills comes into effect only when at many levels reasoning and analysis are also in operation.

Background - Be that as it may, while dealing with ancient Indian history - from the period of janapadas to Guptas one of the problems one comes across is the very limited visual element . Unlike ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome we do not see grand buildings, monuments or even icons (till Kushana period) to help anyone, leave alone a child, to get a feel of these periods. The materiality and the visual expression of this epoch in India's history is something that only a few can fathom. Western historiography on the other hand by a careful study of say Greco-Roman cultures' art and visual expression, been able to reconstruct that past in more detail. For example we have books for children where their attires, food, houses etc are well represented and documented which helps children to get a better feel of the same.

On the other hand material culture of ancient India presents only scattered examples and even when it does, it

i. has not been highlighted in our text-books and reference books in the a way where it makes sense to children and

ii. it has also not been contextualized in such a fashion that full import of the material, the socio-economic and political condition of the times, sinks in. Our books fails to bring about any such connections and historicize matters.

Aims - Towards this end I sought to do two things -

i. to bring to relief the materiality of ancient Indian societies and

ii. help kids to arrive at certain observation, reasoning i.e. understanding of ancient India. The materiality I was looking at was the attires and fashion which existed among different social groups in ancient India specifically from Satvahana to Gupta period.

For this an NBT book titled 'Ancient Indian costume' by Roshen Alkazi helped me to figure out a way through which I could convert the sketches given in the book - which provides outlines of different costumes/attires based on mural paintings and sculptures found largely in Ajanta, Bagh caves, Nagarjunakonda, Sanchi and some museums as well - as a pedagogic tool.

Outlines of different images seen in Ajanta paintings (from Roshan Alkazi's book) copies of which were made and given to one group of children

The outlines in this book (see pictures) of different people who appear in the Ajanta paintings, (the kings, courtesans, warriors etc), and from sculptures of Nagarjunakonda, Barhut, Sanchi lends itself to more concrete identification of costumes than directly through the murals and sculptures itself. Much of these murals and sculptures today stand smudged and worn and as one may be aware they largely depict scenes from Buddhism i.e. Buddhas own life, Jataka tales etc. These murals and sculptures over a period of 500 years (approx), from the period of Satvahanas to the reign of the Vakatakas, a contemporary of the Guptas, thus becomes an important source for the study and understanding of not just the Gupta period but even those societies preceding it. Indeed these paintings at Ajanta, along with the numerous chaityas and viharas here and the caves and paintings at Bagh and the Vishnu temples at Deogarh - for the first time such concrete visualization from an ancient Indian period are seen in such numbers. Based on these one can make certain informed guesses as to the how actually the people during and before the Gupta period could have possibly lived.

Process - I had two sets of students. To one I went about photocopying some of the outlines of these pictures from the book and took photo-prints of Ajanta paintings as well. And I gave these to one group of students who were asked to

i. observe these figures and to note the dress, style, jewellery, head gears very carefully and

ii. to identify changes in dress style as gleaned through these pictures over a period from say Satvahana to Guptas i.e. some 500 years.

iii. I also asked them by looking at the photo-prints, to colour the photocopied outline images.

To the other group I gave multiple copies of the famous sketches of Padmapani Bhodisatva and the Apsara, in an outline format from the Ajanta murals. By looking at the photo-prints of the different Ajanta murals I wanted the students to fill up the remainder of the space of these two sketches by drawing images or floral patterns similar to the style which fills the walls of Ajanta.

Outcome - The children highlighted the different variations in attires from Kushana and Satvahana period to Gupta period - i.e. the landed/princely classes used lot of jewellery and

often refined head gears in contrast to the more simplistic attire of the monks. They coloured the images based on what they could make out of the photo-prints. (I had also asked the kids to refer and find out how the murals in Ajanta were painted) The conclusion they arrived on was unlike the kind of fashion and sartorial changes one witnesses in say just 10-20 years today, in ancient India, fundamental changes in attires and fashion across time and space was extremely slow and minimal. Though they did not state this in their report (which was in the form of chart work) one student also pointed out that attires in ancient Indian past indicated one's socio-economic status much more clearly than today. (This comment left me wondering...signs of more democratic times we live in?...did not discuss this further though at some levels these kids in class VII were giving an example of sumptuary laws perhaps?)

The other group put in their effort and this was the result....

Conclusion- In a sense this experiment of mine paid off some limited dividends. Children's attention was drawn to those aspects of ancient Indian history which are not highlighted in conventional books and secondly to help them to see how changes happen (or does not happen) in more concrete fashion (pun intended) rather than merely look at economic and social structures alone. Aspects like attires, food, buildings etc are those that children can easily observe and connect to and thus they are more attuned to notice the changes thereof. The kids also in their attempt to draw in a similar vein the murals in Ajanta, got a better feel of the art form and style. But then technically speaking as one would surmise by looking at their work, their actual drawing skills as in their ability to reproduce, was very limited.

Kapil Sibal and the examination debate...barking up the wrong tree?

2009-06-06T10:42:00.027+05:30

The exams results are out and each and every school worth its salt, pepper and sugar are proudly advertising the jaw dropping performances of their worthy students - 100% passes with more than 50% of its students securing not less than 90% marks in all subjects - maths, sciences, social sciences, languages and many securing centums (sic). The average pass percentages in most of the private schools in Tamil nadu and Karnataka let it be those affiliated to numerous state boards, cbse, icse hovers somewhere between 70-80%! Coming to my own bunch of students and their performance in social sciences - well the results left me breathless!
Students who barely managed to figure in the 50% bracket on an average and who had tremendous difficulty in distinguishing between the two great wars, between Gandhi and Garibaldi, Mandela and Mussolini happily cracked the board paper with 80%!!! There seemed to be no bearing or correlation between the assessment/evaluation that I and my colleagues after spending hours in teaching/coaching with the 'indifferent', 'challenged' 'weak' students had carried out, to the kind of percentages obtained by them based on the evaluation done by the high and mighty "examination/education board". (In the passing I should also note that the "bright" students "shone" in the latter evaluation as well.) What is amusing in this context is how often may of our worthy opinion makers use these 'marks' (results) to make passionate espousals for privatization of education. For, compared to government schools results, the private schools produce numbers that certainly make a better copy. This in the view of the LPG (liberalization, privatization and globalization) votaries reflect better quality of teaching and learning. But only the naive will see any merit in these marks and the farcical examinations that bring forth these magical numbers. Indeed it is truly a magic! These marks hardly reflect any learning and understanding ability of a child and at best only suggests a child's simplistic literacy and memorization ability!

Exams and tests as we have it, and particularly the different board exams, have so colonized the teaching/learning process that no learning and no honest evaluation of learning is ever going to be possible in this country. And if at all any learning that transpires despite such examinations with its emphasis on ensuring scores rather than testing any understanding, it will be purely coincidental, accidental and incidental! These exams reflect no genuine understanding but yet end up putting tremendous pressure on everyone connected with schools, not just kids but even teachers and parents. So the incumbent education minister Kapil Sibal has stirred a hornet's nest by calling for an end to Class X board exams for schools affiliated to CBSE. But are we just looking at the end of public exams or are we looking at end of exams in all its totality where exams just like corporal punishments will be banned and where schools and teachers who conduct these exams will be penalized??!!

Are exams intrinsically horrendous and flawed? What is it that really puts pressure on the kids? Is it the exam itself or much rather the kind of exam papers we have in the country and also the kind of evaluation norms that we have in this country? I would like to imagine and argue that it is the latter which is indeed stressing and traumatizing the students. For doing away with exams at many levels would also mean doing away with learning itself.

When it comes to history, let it be ICSE or Tamil Nadu stateboard exams (CBSE of the lot is perhaps the most progressive but will come to that in a while) the curriculum focus is entirely on cramming tons of information. The texts carry little analysis or reasoning. And likewise in exams again there is very little test of reasoning or application. Teaching of history itself leaves very little room for any of the above to transpire. Lot hinges on how much you cram, memorize and how well you are able to reproduce in the exams which undoubtedly can be stressful. For so much of your mind is taxed in this process than when one is trying to use reasoning, analysis and application. (let me also add here that memorization in itself is not as horrendous a thing as made out to be for it is also a skill which has its relevance and place as long as we do not make it the only skill to be tested)

Having examinations to merely test one's rote 'learning' ability is something that even the government and state educational boards finds it hard to convince itself, leave alone those who fault such a flawed criteria for evaluating a child's understanding. But the powers that be rather than look at a total overhaul of the curriculum and schooling in India have sought to address this problem in a very ingenious and ludicrous fashion.

Now whatever the child writes in the examination paper, even if it has only slim and marginal bearing to the question, even if the answer is a travesty, full of factual errors of names, dates and events ...in other words whatever howler is written, which by rights an evaluator should just score out, even such responses is deemed to be worthy of been given certain weightage i.e. marks! Evaluation benchmarks have been so diluted that only perhaps when a child gives a blank page for its answers that a child can fail these board exams. This explains how some of my students, who like I said cannot really figure out (actually did not care and at many levels it was i who failed to get them interested in history) if Hitler was connected to first world war or second and whether Russian revolution preceded French or did Germany fight against the Chinese or was it the Japs? - managed to do 'exceedingly well'.

For all the inane details that a child has to cram (without figuring out the larger picture, the hows and whys and not just the what, where and whens) which no doubt is frustrating and traumatizing, the board exams offer this sop and assurance of such sloppy evaluation which ensure higher pass percentages. This in the end settles the issue!

CBSE was saddled with the the new NCERT history books and these books, like I have always maintained does not lend itself to easy grasp i.e. memorization. Lot of plodding is required both by the student and teacher and indeed there is no such thing as correct answers but lot of reasoning and analysis i.e. understanding, is needed to figure out the lessons in these books. But not more than 20 marks are set aside for the whole history book (and 20 for geography, another 20 for political science and some 5 marks each for disaster management and economics and 20 marks for so called internal assessment ) in the final cbse exams and in the end a student is expected to attempt only handful of questions. Since so much of virtue is made of "open endededness" in progressive discourses on education that anything that a child writes passes of as great answer. And presto - the kid has scored a distinction!. So here again, while CBSE has a "progressive" tag, it again executes another farce in the name of an exam.

These ways we delude a child and ourselves into believing that s/he has grasped or mastered the subject and we thus make a mockery of exams and mockery of learning itself. The thing is each discipline has got its epistemological status, its ontology or to put it in other words, each subject has got its identity, integrity and character. But having such banal and inane question papers which pass off as "exams" so as to not to stress the students, it only insults the intrinsic merit, beauty and challenge each of the subjects or disciplines represent. It is of course not to suggest that only select few can master subjects. Every subject is learnable and doable but for that to happen we need to have a flexible and decentralized curriculum and more importantly a school faculty who are very resourceful, committed, passionate, creative, who know their discipline inside out and are able to use various pedagogical methods so that the vast demographic majority across social and economic divide are able to 'master the subject'.

Secondly the far greater premium that we put on academics only indicates at several senses the predilection of the Indian ethos of privileging the intellect and theory over praxis. Linking one's intelligence, competence, ability, skills to strictly academia only betrays a very brahmanical mindset. Ability to read and write with understanding is not something that comes easily to all (given the kind of resources children have, more so in government schools where they do not have resources worth naming) but yet the same child who cannot figure out the difference between Asoka and Akbar can figure out which mango tree is going to flower and which one is going to give better fruit and the same child can also figure out where he will get the best price for the mangoes in the market. But yet such a child may not find a job in the swanky retail chains like Big Bazaar and Reliance where blokes with 'better academic record' i.e. an MBA but with little 'native intelligence and hands on experience' will get great openings as purchase managers, marketing vice presidents etc etc. In India we make too much of a person's so called literateness and all our businessess and social systems go to promote and privilege, what I call 'cognitive-intellectual intelligence' - an intelligence in a very abstract sense than in a real or concrete sense. (Maybe using Howard Gardner's much quoted but perhaps less understood, multiple intelligences theory the logico-mathematical intelligence is favoured, nurtured and assessed over the musical, linguistic, inter-personal, bodily-kinesthetic etc) This craze for degrees only arises because everyone in India insists on an academic degree not ability!

Thirdly, thus in India, only professions which are padded to academia have economic value. How much money does a farmer, carpenter, a weaver make compared to techies and management graduates? True elsewhere in the world too white collared professionals make more but no where is the discrepancy between hard physical labour and "labour using intellect" as vast as it is in India and globalization at many levels has only widened the schism. Hence every farmer or carpenters dream is to ensure that their sons (and sometimes daughters as well) enter the hallowed precincts of Infosyss', TCSs, Wipross' making money hands over fist. The intelligences, skills involved in weaving, farming, carpentry can be best exhibited only when people are involved in the act of farming or weaving and not so much in an academic exam where it has little chance of being seen, recognized and valued. How can children coming from such backgrounds be expected to do well in exams where only one's literacy and memorization skills are tested? And it is therefore not surprising, which Prof Krishna Kumar laments, that in states like Madhya Pradesh, in its board exams, only 35% students manage to pass. For majority of these schools, to begin with, do not having a teaching faculty of an order that can help these students to acquire higher order learning and understanding ability - teachers who can give them the necessary linguistic skill to read, listen and articulate answers well. For as things stand intelligence and ability in India has to exist in black and white on a peice of paper and if that is what we really want, our opinion and policy makers do not seem to be taking appropriate measures save making adhoc and knee-jerk changes.

All these i argue is another upper caste bias for brains over brawns. In the past the Brahmins with their intellect dominated the society and were so privileged because of their "literate knowledge" (in this context Vedic texts) but now with the inroads democracy has made literacy is no longer an forte of the Brahmins alone but literacy is indeed seen as a means by which empowerment across the social and economic demographies is possible. But due to contemporary political and economic demands and pressures and the dominant discourses that we have on development and growth, literacy has been emptied of all genuine learning and understanding. Literacy in this sense can hardly be seen as either an enabler or empowerer.

But for true literacy skills to be provided, better schools are needed. Far reaching reforms of schools and schooling is called for. Here in my view to repeat, great talent should be helped to enter school teaching profession which will by far have the most positive impact on education and indeed the society.

Instead we just choose to tweak the system ...some here like the new Right to Education Bill which makes it mandatory for private schools to provide 25% of its seat free to poor kids and some there, like this proposal to end public exams. which in my view is so antithetical to learning. Exams then are not so much to undermine the child's self esteem but on the contrary to give the child the much needed confidence.

We no doubt need exam reforms where a child's comprehension can be genuinely tested and not mere ability to cram data or facts. So what are the ways out?

If different methods of evaluation are opted would exams still be a dirty word? Imagine exams in history where a child is given the freedom of chosing his/her method of evaluation? where one does not have series of banal or inane questions but just two or three essays? or where child can sketch out something of the wars or events which reflects certain understanding? or write a poem? But whatever be the form of evaluation preparing for an exam involves focus, concentration, priortizing and hard work. The latter makes rather, shall we say, discomforting demands and generally speaking the sensation of preparing for the exams is anything but pleasant. But then exams are as much an integral part of the learning process as much as lectures, demonstrations, activities, field trips etc to ensure the learning one has obtained is holistic and complete. And again just like none of the teaching methods can be regarded to be perfect and have its own limitations, examinations too are fraught with many weaknesses and failings. But all these cannot be a ground for removing exams and at the same time a person's ability to survive and survive well and make money should also not depend upon his/her academic record i.e. examination grades or marks. As an economy and society we should evolve and accept many unconventional methods of learning and also figuring out one's ability to perform a task.

To repeat exam reforms are needed and one would realize that for such reforms to happen so many changes are required in the curriculum - textbooks, resource materials and importantly resourceful teachers of ability, standing and credibility who can truly help children learn with understanding. For only then will the vast sections of the Indian society be able to compete with those traditionally privileged without compromising on the sanctity and inherent value of a discipline/subject.

All these one is afraid is a long long time coming.

Understanding material culture through a simulated archaeological dig

2009-03-14T19:22:00.015+05:30

I'm always endeavouring to make history as experiential and as contextual as possible. And I continue to believe that history is all about understanding issues, themes and concepts that affects one's social, economic, political and cultural existence by placing them in context of time and space.

One theme/concept that is essential for developing historical thinking and appreciation of change over a period of time is "material culture" i.e. how the type of materials we use reflect our style of living, our abilities, our skill sets, ideas, our aesthetics etc. Children need to understand that each cultures in the past, across different geographical locations can be identified on the basis of the kind of materials used like pottery, clothes, building materials and the kind of design element that went into them.

It is by careful examination of such historical material evidences corroborated by other literary evidences that we reconstruct the past.

To achieve the above I arranged for a simulated archaeological dig for students of Class VII. The aims were twofold: to help children understand the process of historical investigation and to help them see a link between materials and the time frame in which these materials are obtained. In other words children have to identify and understand that certain kind of materials are associated with certain time periods and specific cultures.

Method: Simulating an archaeological dig involves lot of time and preparation. With the help of my colleagues I first had to make artifacts related to the Pre historic period, Egyptian, Indus, Greek, Romans using plaster-of-paris, thermocol, papermache etc. Then I had also arranged a pit to be made in the school compound where I put these artifacts in layers of stone age, bronze age and iron age. The idea being that stone age being the oldest whence the first human cultures emerged- artifacts connected to it like stone implements would be found buried the deepest. Then came the bronze age cultures of Egypt and Harappa and accordingly artifacts representing these cultures come after the stone age and hence occupies the second layer in the pit. Finally comes the iron age cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Hence in the archaeological site, artifacts from these cultures were on the top layer. But then like I was to discuss with the kids later, no archaeological sites do we find matters arranged so neatly and hence had to shuffle some of the artifacts in such a way that many pre historic artifacts were found on top layer which actually corresponded to iron age and vice versa.

The idea was to help the kids to themselves arrive at such a summation and discern patterns based on i. the number of artifacts they dug up

ii. the layer or part of the pit from where they carefully dug the artifact

and iii. the type of artifact based on shape, design, artwork etc.

The thing is by the third term students of Class VII in our school have already familiar with the pre-historic, ancient Harappan, Egyptian, Roman, greek, Vedic, Mauryan cultures and hence they already have some familiarity of the artifacts and ability to figure out the cultures and time frame to which these artifacts belonged. Therefore it is imperative that anyone seeking to do do a similar archaeological dig, that children are given some grounding and initiated into discussions on the cultures whose artifacts are to be obtained in the dig. Else it becomes too much for children to figure it all out.

Process - The first question that arises is how does one identify a site where it makes sense to start digging to discover artifacts. I wanted to put across to the kids the idea of corroboration where multiple sources are used for a comprehensive understanding of the past. So I kind of simulated an old literary account which hinted the place within the school campus where I had set up the archaeological site. (It was actually a box measuring approx 3 X 3 X 3 but even a pit could be dug depending on the teacher's ability and resources mobilized) I told the kids I was reading from an account of a traveller who had visited this place more than 1000 years back which once stood very close to our school building. This account spoke of a city which was north- west close to the trade route to the coastal city of Chennaipatinam and this city was densely vegetated. This clue was to indicate the location of an old city, no longer in existence but perhaps some remains of it could be found. But then I had also to discuss with the kids what physical evidences would further indicate that something from the past could be buried in the place, as further corroboration? I had to suggest that one has to be on the look for some clues like shreds of pottery, some pieces of cloth, some part of an artifact etc which would indicate something under. Then I also told the kids how often many of potential archaeological sites are often mound like in appearance, for commonly towns and villages get built and rebuilt over the years following floods, famines, invasions and thats how they gain certain elevation.

Then I sent a team of kids from the class to identify the place as it was located in the school compound itself. (TVS Hosur campus is huge and there are parts not frequented by kids where I could set up the whole pit) They failed despite all the hints that were given and finally i had to guide them to the site where all the hints and clues were in evidence.

We then divided into three groups. One group did the digging. (And of course digging an archaeological site is not like a routine digging. The kids were told to dig carefully with certain implements I had provided) lest in the process they destroy the fragile evidences. The other group had to sort out the artifacts, clean them and the third group with the help of certain reference books had to determine the cultures to which these material evidences belonged and thus arrange them in terms of time and cultures.

Conclusion - The simulated activity, on the basis of evaluation I did in its aftermath, helped children to appreciate the following:

a. that archaeology is a painstaking but very crucial element for our understanding of past.

b. certain prior familiarity and grounding of the cultures one is dealing with is also needed before one starts the dig to place the artifacts in the proper context

c. material evidence along with written records gives one a better appreciation of the past and it also helps in verifying the sources one is using to reconstruct the past.

d. the materials/artifacts unearthed indicate in very concrete terms the lifestyle and cultures of people in past.

e. when we encounter any such element from the past i.e. artifacts, buildings, monuments or any material evidence, we need to deal them with care and empathy. For these artifacts, buildings, records etc retrieved through archaeology/history helps us to understand ourselves better - as an individual, a member of a community and society and helps us in a deeper appreciation of the issues, problems that we as an individual and members of the society face.

Slumdog Millionaire: A R Rahman, Globalization and Pedagogy

2009-02-23T18:23:00.012+05:30

So Rahman has made it. And twice over. Well, what else does one say when one gets the most coveted cinema award - The Oscar and two of them to boot. But not just the critics of Rahman's music ( and I'm not one) but even his fans (which I certainly am) would concur that Slumdog...was average music and very average by Rahman's own prodigious standard.
Compared to his soulful 1947 Earth, Swades, Jaane Tu or even his latest elevating Delhi 6 in Hindi and innumerable numbers in Tamil - Roja, En Swase Katre, Rhythym, Pudhiya Mugam, Duet to name a very few - Slumdog is barely a patch on any of these films. Most of these popular Tamil and Hindi films were downright pathetic in terms of screenplay or script or direction, redeemed just by songs composed by Rahman and backed even by melifulous background score.

As a history teacher I often invoke Rehman's music in my interaction with kids while dealing with Early modern Europe, (to tell my kids in small town Hosur/Tumkur where rarely have they heard any western classical music - when he is called Mozart of Madras, kids just do not need to know who Mozart was but sample some of Mozart's music as well.) or while discussing US in geography (to introduce them to pop music in more nuanced terms, to genre of jazz, blues, hip-hop, merengue, rock etc) for one gets to hear all such palpable influences in his musical score. Rahman's eccletic genius lies precisely in his ability to fuse music from very diverse categories and many sounds one hears in Rahman's music, rather a child hears, can be used as sample to contextulaize certain topics in history and geography. I used a song from En Swaase Katre- Theendai in one of my classes some years back while dealing with churches and religion in medieval Europe, for that song uses Gregorian Chants as base. And then I played some Gregorian chants as well along with vedic chants to drive home certain similarities in religions despite their apparent differences. The point here is I used A R Rahman in a classroom as a pedagogical device.

But though it worked as a learning tool, it was interesting the way many kids reacted and react to Rahman's music. It was not typical and did not sound Indian, few remarked. 'Anu Malik is still my bet' said one. And actually in buses and shops one often hears more of Pritham these days. The masses connect so well to a Pritham, an Anu Malik and even a Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (many would consider this trio as successor to Rahman, often mistaking their music for the latter's) but for those in India, largely its middle classes with their global aspirations, find in Rahman's music something they could connect to and project to the world and indeed to themselves - a new identity which is simply not Indian but global. One can thus see Rahman as someone who brought world music to the Indian masses, masses aspiring for 'class'. But now I wonder if Rahman in Slumdog has perhaps brought Bollywood music to the world than his usual adroitness in bringing world music to Indian masses. Truly, Slumdog music could well be off an 'average' Bollywood music director. But then by giving Rahman an Oscar for a 'typical' Bollywood soundtrack created by him , is the world acknowledging popular film music in India, with its unique notes, beats, idiom, in which Rahman's music itself was largely seen as 'atypical'? Globalization championed by the big capital and political power of the US, has as such been lopsided and loaded against India, imposing its economic, social and cultural character but now do we see in an Oscar for Slumdog's music (i'm not going into Slumdog the movie, which perhaps is problemmatic at many a levels) as India finally getting its due share in shaping popular sensibilities across the world, more so in a world dominated by the US? As many proponents of globalization would have it, the latter is always a two way street. Leave this for a debate...

And some years back I had written this peice for Deccan Herald with far greater insights and details which I present here

Helping children to understand Harappan cultures

2009-01-29T12:03:00.011+05:30

Attention to drainage and sanitation on the one hand and emphasis on town planning on the other were two of the outstanding features of the Harappan cultures. Now the challenge is bring out these unique aspects to a students cognition and understanding. I was trying to figure out hard and help my dear colleague Sarada and then I hit upon these two activities, which in my view brings to relief these two singularities.

In the first worksheet I have given pictures from Harappa and Mohenjodaro of their drains and along with it a clip art picture of a person who is sick. The idea is to drive home the point that most of the illnesses in the past (and present as well) are caused by poor sanitary conditions.
In the days of yore the average life span of people was around 40-45 years and mortality rates were generally high. These were largely so because of poor sanitary conditions obtained in the society of the times from ancient period to even modern times. The Harappan people, as evidenced by the extensive network of drains, were among the first to perhaps understand it and thus emphasized on sanitation and cleanliness. This way the children get a context for understanding the prevalence of extensive drainage and also the archaelogical discovery of baths even in small households (and not just the great bath) . The other questions in the worksheet are meant to give further insights into the Harappan culture i.e. how burnt bricks for example is a more durable material than clay which can withstand the test of time better than clay. Perhaps one reason why we have so little of archaeological evidence of the Vedic or even post vedic period whose material culture was perhaps different.

The other singularity of the Harappan culture was town planning. I have asked the kids to look at two maps of two cities. One is in a grid type similar to what we read about Harappan towns viz. wide roads, shops and houses in blocks, etc. The other is all haphazard with no planning whatsoever. I have given few questions like in which town would it be easier for a stranger to find their way and why is it in the planned town all shop and workshops are closer to the river and also if a town becomes a well known trading centre what is required for smooth and easy transportation etc. The idea behind this ws is basically to draw their attention to the fact that Harappan culture was largely commercial which was frequented by traders and merchanst from distant lands. Lots of goods were to be transported and hence the towns were planned to prioritize trade i.e. movement of goods. Therefore the roads had to be wide and well paved for carts and caravans to move quickly, the shops and production centres had to be so located that it was convienient for traders i.e. hence closer to rivers. Children can be told how in India over the last few years with increasing trade with other countries and India's own increasing production the roads, bridges have been brought to shape to facilitate easier and quicker movement of goods. This increasing economic activity has also resulted in the emergence of new townships with proper planning. ( Actually gated communities...now dont know whether the kids of class VI will fully comprehend that such changes actually benefit only the few...this question though valid is another matter and my knowledge of Indus does not go that far to give parallel examples with the location of the Harappan working classes) Once again, I hope this activity/exercise will help children to further contextualize Harappan cultur and its town planning.

Click here and here for the worksheets. (some formating errors have crept in while converting it into pdf)

Attempting to teach religion as political - any ideas?

2008-12-02T16:16:00.015+05:30

As it happens I'm currently dealing with different religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam from classes VII to IX. This is not the first time that I'm dealing with religion as such. Every ancient civilizations that we deal with always has a section on religion i.e. Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses etc.
But then we have exclusive chapters on Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and even Hinduism. So how does one help children to distinguish the latter religions from the former?

It is with the above poser in mind that I seek to handle religions for kids. It is important for children, I think, to arrive at some distinction between the two. It is important for them in other words to figure out the difference between those religions which are more functional and less didactic, less normative than those religions which determine in a far greater degree aspects of one's existence which includes food, dress, occupations etc. It is in the latter category that religions like Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism will fall into. And then I also make another distinction between these religions in terms of political implications.

I first sought to put the above points to the kids in Class VII, VIII and IX through a discussion. I gave them this worksheet (CLICK HERE) to draw similarities between Greco-Roman religions and Hinduism. In this way I sought to highlight that though these two religions were divided in spatial terms but in functional terms they were similar in many aspects.

Then I sought to bring about the commonality in religions such as Christianity, Buddhism (and even Islam)as opposed to Hinduism and Greco-roman religions. These religions, I argue, brought about social change by questioning existing traditions, practices and customs. Christianity and Buddhism with its great emphasis on compassion, love and kindness brought new elements into the religious discourse of the times. Such elements in number of ways undermined the controlling ideas of the political class. I gave the students the example of how a political or ruling class controls the society based on the beliefs and customs of the people. Very often what people believe and do not believe in is determined by the religious idea. For example people in Europe for long believed in geocentric theory largely so because the church deemed it so. Likewise as per controlling idea of the times sacrificing cattle and paying tribute to landlords, priests, indulging and participating in some public ritual, public ceremonies, sports events ( like the barbaric events in the Roman Colosseum) festivals etc helped the ruling classes to legitimize their position and power. In such a scenario if some one starts questioning the futility of such ceremonies, rituals and festivals because thousands of people are affected in the process of such popular practices, for such rituals and practices lack meaning, for such festivals and customs are basically money making means for the kings and priests - what do you think will be the response of the ruling classes like kings and priests to such a person?

What I sought to express to my students was the simple fact that questioning prevailing traditions and practices of the people without even openly opposing the king and seeking to gain power, was in itself a political act. Thus Christ or Buddha never aspired for any political power and were concerned with creating new value system (new controlling idea) for the society. But since even these new value system undermined all those practices, customs and rituals of people by which the kings and priestly classes' power and status was reinforced, the teachings and ideas of people like Christ, Buddha and Muhammad was political for they questioned prevailing traditions and sought to make their religion more inclusive by opening it up to all irrespective of a person's wealth, social background, or status.

I went on to give even further examples - in Greco-Roman tradition and even in early Hinduism there was little in terms of compassion, kindness for the poor, dispossessed, weak. Social stratification i.e. caste system in early Indian society was seen as a given and people continued to carry on with their business and daily lives as if nothing was wrong in their society. Based on these controlling ideas then the kings ruled. Therefore anyone even when not questioning the king but questioning the prevalent practices of the people was also upsetting political equations.

Now I'm not too sure to what extent students in Class VII, VIII and IX where I discussed all these understood all the aspects of the nuanced argument (and I'm trying to develop further some activity to put across this view in a more concrete fashion) but I maintain it is important for children to understand the idea of "political" while dealing with religions.

Teach India or Cheat India? - a dissenting note on TOI's Teach India campaign

2008-10-14T11:19:00.003+05:30

So much is being made in very self righteous and self-congratulatory tone of Times of India's Teach

India

campaign. Now that Aamir Khan has also joined the effort there is this great (though misplaced ) feel good factor. The news reports being carried on this campaign where we come across "enthusiastic", "energetic", "spirited" volunteers on the one hand and school dropouts, street kids with their "bubbling energy", "eager anticipation", "innocent eyes" which has seen so much of life's seamier side, on the other, all sounds so corny and bromodic.

Times of India, a newspaper which has so brazenly and patently promoted a culture of consumerism, elevated the lifestyle of the rich and famous (through its soft pornography of Bangalore Times, Delhi Times, Mumbai Times which school kids read with more enthusiasm and glee than...??? Come to think of it TOI actually has nothing constructive or postive for teens and kids like say Hindu's Young World. Of course they have this fancy NIE programme where I'm told they have student specific editions but then students in their early and late teens swear by TOI not for its NIE versions but its tabloid versions!) as something that all should aspire for; a newspaper that caters basically to that exclusive, self seeking, indulgent classes who reside and work in gated communities of Indian metropolises, but now TOI expects the same classes to reach out to the less fortunate, lesser mortals who do not have the fortune of quality education! Sounds so hypocritical, hollow and spurious!! It seems to escape the powers that be at TOI that it is the same social and economic culture that their broadsheet so passionately and unabashedly espouses i.e. free markets, sex, social exclusivism etc that creates in the first place the chasm between people in terms of haves and have nots, it further negates, subverts and corrupts all those qualities that define good education - values which can transform ordinary students to emerge as responsible citizens. With much of TOI's focus on sleaze (to be fair to them, most of media in India is focussed on smut) Teach

India

is basically a posturing gimmick and a fig leaf for the decadent, consumeristic bourgeoise culture that Samir Jain's TOI so nauseatingly promotes through its brand of journalism. TOI and India's dominat media culture (of India Today, Dainik Jagran, NDTV, Zee, CNN-IBN etc) is so anithetical to the growth, development and nurturing of responsible citizenship qualities among school kids whose values, mindsets have become obsessed by greed, consumerism and self centredness, qualities covertly and overtly promoted by media of TOI variety with its ubiquitous and hegemonic presence.

While the spirit and motives behind Teach

India

is fine in itself (and could have been finer still were it not backed by a rag like TOI), we need to recognize that volunteerism will hardly help in addressing the enormity of the crisis of learning that afflicts

India

. Education and teaching are intense jobs, emotionally consuming, intellectually demanding but of course can provide joy and stimulation like no other. But what Teach India is in fact doing, unwittingly perhaps, is again creating the impression that issues connected to learning can be solved by volunteerism.

We need to remember that learning is not just about acquring some skills - to add up, to read, to write but to facilitate deep and proper understanding of both the natural and social world around us. The prevalent discourse of voluteerism in the field of education, something which Teach India furthers, seems to indicate or rather reduce the whole teaching-learning process as a sum of skills - not learning. Mere literacy skills will hardly help to transform

India

into a nation of well meaning, informed citizens.

The real remedy to the problems of illiteracy and poor learning is to make teaching a worth the while profession which in turn can attract well meaning people into schools, who as teachers can truly make an impact on the students - equip them not just with literacy skills but who help them to mature into well grounded, responsible, thinking citizens. One is not just quick to find fault with teachers for the state of affairs in schools but by reducing teaching to a volunteering effort, one makes it appear that teaching-learning is such a simple process and all that is needed is a spirit of volunteerism to remedy the enormous problem. Do people have any idea what it takes to really teach or help a a child in a fashion where a child's understanding goes beyond mere recollection, repeatition and memorization to reason, analyze, compare, apply, reflect or in other words where a child can be propelled on a trajectory of self-learning and discovery? Or has literacy agenda so colonized our educational policies that basic reading and writing skills alone are seen as sufficient goal or enabler of development? (TOI of course will be happy with latter goals. As long as folks can read Bangalore Times without thought!) So may reports and studies indicate majority of our kids in primary schools after six years of schooling can barely read or write. By setting aside few hours, couple of days a week for such children can barely substitute more sustainable efforts which can only happen in a school on a full time basis.

It's time that we look beyond basic literacy and primary education and recognize that even 'mere literacy skills' needs intense work on the part of teachers and literacy as such is not (maybe should not be) separated from critical thinking skills.

Why does not Teach

India

look into the issue of school teachers and teaching In India and why these days no well meaning person wants to get into school teaching? (must admit there was a story or two on this when Teach

India

was started with all fan fare) Will Teach India also look into the fact that how school teachers across the country (more so in private schools) are as such the most exploited professionals in India - exploited in terms of poor pays, horrible work conditions and denying them self esteem? Will Teach India delve into the kind of emotional pressures that teachers are subjected to by all the other stake holders - students, school managements and parents - who see them as no more than very dispensable entities and who can be knocked around failing to meet "school/parental/student requirements" - and these requirements are as such the whims and fancies of either the (increasingly ill behaved) school students, self opinionated parents and scheming school managements? Will Teach India help initiate a debate by which means and methods are evolved (which goes beyond mouthing platitudes on teaching as a 'noble profession' and instituting few meaningless teacher awards) which brings in better talent to the teaching profession and gives teachers a sense of dignity?Why cannot Teach India also lobby for the Right to Education Bill as well, which seeks to make it mandatory for all private schools to accept at least 25% of students from poor family without any fees? The Gurcharan Dases, Swaminathan Aiyars of TOI who unfailingly and consistently paint the school teaching community black more so if they are from government schools, ever see, like what Azim Premji said, the government school has to become relevant for all and not just the poor?

Helping children understand and contextualize classes

2008-09-01T14:10:00.016+05:30

While dealing with the period of revolutions for students of class IX which includes the French, English Revolution and the American war of independence, it becomes important that a child develops some understanding of classes. At one level classes are determined by the means through which groups of people earn their livelihoods. Classes are embedded in the lifestyle in which people experience themselves, project themselves and indeed identity themselves with. In other words class background of people can be identified on the basis of culture, ideas and the material life in which people socialize.

As an activity/project I sought to help the children to notice this simple but a very important fact. Very often it escapes the notice of children (and even adults) that every aspect of our lifestyle, we consciously and often more unconsciously project our class background and it is important for one to recognize this. And for which children need to be equipped with a context to frame and recognize classes.

Of course at one level people certainly are aware of classes in very simplistic terms as people who are rich and those who are poor. But we need to go much beyond this simplistic schema to bring in a bit more complex schema where, as mentioned, we look at classes in terms of the ways through which people earn or make their livelihoods. So under such framework we come across middle classes who are basically the professionals of doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists (and the humble teacher of course), but who could be having a lifestyle (given the high salaries that management and software professionals make), which could rival and best those of the bourgeoisie classes. The latter classes (can include industrial entrepreneur as big a player like the Ambanis or Tatas or it could even be those who run a small and medium enterprises/factories in towns like Hosur and Coimbatore and not to forget the small shop owners and retailers) are those who do not 'make money' through salaries and wages but through profits and margins. Then we have the working classes in both organized and unorganized sectors who eke out a living through wages.

We also have the feudal, landed elements of our society. The feudal classes in India have evolved in such a complex process that although most of them derive their income through the growing capitalist relations of production where agricultural produce is sold in the open market and wages paid to workers, many of the attributes of India's colonial and medievalistic past are manifest in their lifestyle. And then these same classes in India dominate its political scene and hence sycophancy, servility, opportunism, the values that define their social life are so evident in their politics too. Indeed given this classes preponderance in politics, Indian politics itself has become synonymous with all the latter attributes and much worse.(This was brought about by two sets of groups in their presentation through their reading of Indian democracy and politics)

The bourgeoise and most middle classes are also identifiable with their patently consumeristic lifestyle and their constant hankering for things. The working classes' lifestyle is characterized by wants, frugality, austerity, deprivation, lack of hygeine and ill health.

Thus classes and their attributes are manifest in many domains i.e. language, lifestyle, mannerisms and such classes have been manifest across time and across space.

After having familiarized children with all the above in some depth I asked them to present their understanding through certain visuals and models. Children tried to determine classes based on people's material life. In itself it did not involve more than collecting pictures from magazines, advertisements and making models and drawings which established the fact that certain lifestyle are connected to the professions and the kind of money you make with those professions. But I would imagine I gave them certain frames or contexts to identify and interpret people and society through the prism of classes. Of course it is not just enough to help children to figure out classes and identify them based on certain external attributes. We also need to question why there are preponderance of certain classes in certain societies and why certain classes in history i.e. the upper classes, albeit in minority, always manage to hold on to the reins of political, economic and social power. This is a much deeper question debates on which I have just initiated with the students, answers for which will take a long time to crystallize.

I have included certain pictures and video clippings of the stuff they did which would explain the extent to which they grasped these facets of life in contemporary world and past as well.

Alas! Poor articulation eclipsed all their effort and work which they put in making these models and charts.

What is historical thinking?

2008-07-12T19:08:00.011+05:30

I have been reading and rereading this wonderful article by Sam Wineburg of Stanford University and Richard Paxton titled 'Expertise and the teaching of history'. (Click here for a website titled historicalthinkingmatters.org maintained by Prof Wineberg). They argue, rightly, that the best way for engendering historical thinking is giving first hand, children different primary sources related to a common event or episode. Since each source carries with it biases, motives and problems, children need to be helped to sift through them and identify the problems and finally arrive at a more "objective" understanding of the past or an event. I have no disputes here. One needs to be sensitized to the fact that knowledge about the past comes from a careful and systematic study of primary sources.
Very often our perception and views of the past are shaped by hearsay and works of poor historical scholarship which refuse to bring upon the sources the kind of questioning and discernment that one needs to for an "objective" understanding of the past. But does historical thinking emerge or refer to this ability to skillfully deal with primary sources in a rigorous and scientific, corroborative fashion? Cannot we look at historical thinking as something which can also emerge from looking at secondary reading, monographs, articles, essays, criticism which satisfies certain criterias? (what those criteria could be i will elaborate later)
As things stand in India, access to primary sources is not easy. Secondly few teachers (including myself) have the kind of linguistic ability that equips one to interpret these primary sources particularly those written in old languages and scripts pertaining to ancient and medieval period. Thirdly and importantly I also wonder if historical thinking is something that one can ascribe to that approach alone where one deals with primary sources alone. Wineburg, of course goes further and also talks about the need for a perspective that one needs to generate from these sources and also perspectives that help one to look at these sources in more than empirical way.

One reconstructs the past basically on the basis of primary literary sources along with archaeological sources but when we (rather I) talk of historical thinking, it is not just in terms of a methodology to examine, deal and interpret with the sources connected to a period or event but more a recognition that events transpire more in temporal terms. In other words when an event or even a process that shapes up, it does so in a social, economic, political and cultural context. And these socio-economic, political, cultural factors impinging on an event have to be studied, recognized and understood as materializing or actualizing in time or over a period of time. This according to me is historical thinking which can be nurtured and needs to be nurtured for the kids and adults as well, for historical thinking is actually an important attribute of citizenship.

Therefore in the first place to bring oneself to raise those questions one needs to look at existing interpretations which examine those events and its sources in more comprehensive ways and help establish the not so evident links that exist between the political, social, economic and cultural domains. In other words one can say that familiarity with secondary sources (monographs and research articles) using frameworks that help explore the sources and events beyond simple empiricism itself helps to nurture historical thinking. And there are innumerable secondary works on various topics whose outline and main ideas teachers can and need to be familiar with so that they can put it across to students to help them realize that- i. an event can be looked at in so many ways, ii. and that events happen in certain concrete contexts. To me historical thinking is an understanding that past or present societal events, changes or even individual actions happen not in simplistic causal fashion but in more complex ways and in more temporal terms.

Historical thinking is not something which can be ascribed just to one's ability to employ certain methods in dealing with primary sources but historical thinking would also mean looking at contemporary issues and events in a diachronic or temporal perspective. This is the ability to identify certain broad contours, features and trends which shape the more manifest political, social and cultural events that transpire across space and time. And this ability need not just be arrived only when confronted with primary sources. On the other hand making use of existing studies that have used various primary sources and have factored in earlier interpretations as well, and putting it before students highlighting the ways the sources pertaining to a particular period or an event have been used would be of greater help in engendering historical thinking. Historical thinking thus is also the ability to ask questions which helps one to arrive at broad generalizations that help to understand society better across space and time. It is a different matter that we do not have books appropriately written for children (and even teachers) which reflect such intense scholarship and use of primary sources.

For example if one is looking into the conflict between Mughals and Marathas, in my opinion it is more important for the students to understand land relations, the social structure (caste system), methods of warfare, religious beliefs of the people etc to establish the fact that it was more a conflict between two competing classes, than just look at it as a Hindu v/s Muslim conflict. One is not trying to minimize the influence of religion and that religion did not play a role in one's identity but more to establish the idea that religion itself was enmeshed in social, economic and political changes of the times. And the thing is there is a rich historiography dealing with this conflict by historians/scholars like Andre Wink, Irfan Habib, Jadunath Sarkar, Sardesai etc to name a only a few, following whose works one can arrive at a more complex and rich but by no means a closed and sealed understanding of this chapter in late medieval Indian history. Historical thinking then is about recognizing the latter and since we have great number of studies (secondary sources) exploring that particular aspect of Mughal history, historical thinking is not incumbent on one's ability to sift through various sources from that period. Historical thinking can also be generated by helping children become familiar with different perspective offered by different studies which extends the canvas on which events take place.

Such an ability or skill to look at events then becomes, to repeat, an important attribute of citizenship in the same way scientific thinking and temperament is also used as a marker of citizenship and maybe even modernity.

Common sense and history

2008-05-28T15:29:00.016+05:30

Helping students to arrive at historical outlooks through concrete evidences

Over the last four weeks, there were occasions for me, where I encountered history in action so to speak or more specifically reaffirmed my belief that past is not what our commonsense would have us believe. Second, many of our practices, customs, "values" including language we use and the way we use it are again historically conditioned.

Common sense tell us that India has mostly been a Hindu society (if not a nation) before the advent of Muslim political rule. But if we say that ancient India was largely Hindu we need to make a qualification and a very big one at that. Hinduism, as it is practised today and as the way people see it, was never the kind of dominant force and religion in India till about 400 AD, that it is today. It was Buddhism which formed and shaped the world view and sensibilities of the majority of its people in India till well about 1000 AD (most certainly till the beginnings of the Guptas around 400 AD)

Was away holidaying in Himachal's Lahaul-Spiti Valley (LSV) last month. And what a valley it was! Swathed in every shades of brown, LSV is basically a cold desert - stark, barren with swatches of green (being the cultivated parts - peas, barley, corn are most dominantly cultivated) And there in middle of nowhere are these remote Buddhist monastries like Dhankar, Ki and Tabo.
The latter has some fantastic Buddhist murals akin to those found in Ajanta (and hence often referred to as the Ajanta of the Himalayas- Alas could not take photos inside...usual restrictions applied!!) Buddhism continues to be the predominant religion in these sparsely populated parts. And then it occured to me - further north west in Afghanistan (Bamiyan statues), Ladakh (innumerable monastries here) and then in central India (exemplified by Ajanta), in the east (Tantra, Nalanda) and then deep south (Tamil epics of Sillapadikaram and especially Manimekhalai.) were evidences to prove my above stated assertion - All these examples were deeply reflective of ubiquitous Buddhist presence in much of ancient and even early medieval India.

The Dhankar monastery

The spectacular Ki monastery

But why did Buddhism decline? Look at it this way - drawing parallels from ancient and beginnings of medieval Europe, if Europe is seen to be Christian today it became so only from the medieval period similar to the way India became "hindu" in the early medieval period. Both Christianity and Hinduism at some level became more expedient for the new political economy that emerged in medieval times and hence its increasing acceptance and popularity. More important for me here was the framework I had within which I was able to place all these concrete evidences or sources and reaffirm the perspective - that ancient India was largely Buddhist and instances that I have been quoting only goes to prove that point. What I would or should really be looking into now is whether my own students, when I put across all these evidences would arrive at similar summations? I have got an activity here I guess to help them see the need for evidence in history and how evidences can be used to arrive at certain perspectives and how these perspectives can be used to counter certain common assumptions on our past.

The Tabo monastrey - one can also see the old monastrey built circa 1000 AD and built out of mud - standing the test of times, where one can witness some of the finest Buddhist murals

And then I get this e-mail while I was in the beautiful valley of Manali - in the shadow of Pir-Panjals, forwarded by my father in law and boy! Have a look at it here. Titled Life in 1500, it is full of nuggets of information but information which tells us so much about our customs and traditions (Here it is the European past). We take so many of them for granted - things as simple as bathing, marriage, the idioms, proverbs that we use etc all have concrete historical origins. Check it out and you will gather what I'm driving at. I think I have another activity in hand while dealing with feudal Europe - how many usages and contemporary customs in English have medieval origins!

Thus this e-mail and my visit to the Himalayas turned out to be a learning experience for me. Both revealed to me aspects of history which our "common sense" fails to account for. What remains to be seen is how effectively I'm able to use all this as a pedagogic tool in my classroom.

Looking at temples historically through theatre

2008-04-20T11:28:00.018+05:30

The king peered at the staff which the priest wielded with flourish and listened to his words carefully: "Listen O king! If you seek to legitimize your rule and gain acceptance amongst the people as someone who is indeed a legitimate wielder of power and not a thug who has usurped political power, you can make use of religion to achieve this end. You exploit religious sentiments of the people and coupled with the blessings of the priestly class, er..., " the priest pauses sheepishly, "that is me, who can attribute a warrior status (kshatriyas) to you and all members from your community, people will start accepting you as the king."

The king ponders on the priests' sermon which on the face of it seemed very self serving. The ministers naturally were not amused and looked suspiciously at the priest. Minister Arunachalesvarar comments sarcastically. "The wily Brahmin as usual is upto his ingenious scheme to forward his community's interest. Rascal!"
The priest contends- "listen Arunachalesvara. Rightly or wrongly the society fears god and those seen in service of God are the most respected. You see as things stand we priests are respected (under the breath, the priest adds - or fear is more like it!) due to our alleged proximity to the gods. Now I'm suggesting means by which even people like you who wield political power can claim proximity to the divine and almighty!"

The king and the ministers in chorus query: "how?"

The priest pauses and then walks across the durbar. He pauses again and shuffles the staff and turns around.

"Build a place of worship which will catch the fancy and imagination of the people. A place of worship - a temple so grand, stupendous and huge to leave people stupified. A temple which symbolizes your devotion to the almighty as much as it symbolizes your power and strength."

The king nods but interjects: " yes yes...but then temples are your domains o priest, the domain of religion and hence the domain of the priests but I'm not too sure if what you are suggesting would help me build on my name and fame..." The king looks at the crown and picks it up..."will this gilded crown be one of thorns...??" and sighs.

The priest counters - "Temples of course are nothing new. But now temples have to be something which is just not the concern of the priest but temples have to be everybody's concern."

Before anyone could counter the priest, he continues: "O king you have the finances and people under your command, do you not?. You are a believer, are you not? People also believe in the powers above, do they not? So why not do something which not only helps in affirming your status as a warrior who can rightly claim to be a king and also reaffirm your faith in the divine? When you build this temple on a grand scale you give everyone a stake in it - masons, artisans like sculptors, weavers, painters etc - hence these very people who are now questioning your legitimacy will now laud you for your devotion and also giving them an opportunity to serve the almighty!"

The priest rested his case.

This was a gist of the play titled Aalayathin Asthivaram (foundations of a temple)which students of class VIII so wonderfully executed on March 27 which also happened to be the world theatre day. This was another attempt in using theatre to popularize and internalize history within the fuzzy interiors of the child's mind. This time around the quiet, unassuming, Rajesh Chandran, my colleague and drama educator did more than the needful in concretizing a rather abstract but vital aspect of early medeival Indian history.

To me one of the issues that intrigues me is why and how India witnessed proliferation of temples from around the 5th century AD? The gist above I suppose will give one the reasoning. It is important for one to understand not just temple in its chronological or architectural specificities (when temple was built, who built it and its unique architectural elements) but also understanding the sociological and historical uniqueness of temples.

One thing I realized during the course of our work on the play - Rajesh's enthusiasm and energy. He jumped at the idea when I discussed with him few months back. I started working on 'something like a script' based on which he worked out the scenes - and he did that quite uniquely by making brilliant use of metaphors. The use of the staff (stick) I thought was an intelligent way of connecting staff with power. But initially it is the priest who wields it but later hands over to the king as part of the coronation ceremony. This in effect proved the point that political legitimacy all said and done remained within the precincts of religion and its representative i.e. the priest. Thus the subtle use of the staff to drive the point. And Mani the student essaying the role of the priest played it so well.

That the ruling classes were basically a class of "suckers", narcissists and megalomaniacs, Rajesh brought this facet by characterizing the king as someone who is constantly ingesting victuals i.e. fruits, nuts even as ministers salivate. Vijith the kid who played the role of the king wowed the audience.

Rajesh opened the narrative with contemporary scenario where temples have lost its symbolic, social, cultural and intrinsically political value ( as opposed to the overt use of temple politics by the Hindu right wing which today not surprisingly fails to make much of an impact beyond certain time and space) The mute sculptures adorning the walls and pillars of the temples who have witnessed better days of glory and power, are given a voice whence they narrate with lament and resignation, at the present state of temples and how it was in the past. Each kid acting as a sculpture performed their part well with excellent articulation of dialogues through which the temples history unfolded.

On my suggestion Rajesh agreed to the use of a screen as a backdrop which projected the numerous images of temples with an excellent rendition of an alaap as a background by another underrated faculty member, my colleague and music educator Nagraj Hegde. The play reached its crescendo with image of two different temple projected on to the screen. So it was also a multi-media presentation to boot where MS powerpoint was put to an integrated use and was not used merely as a prop. Once again it were the kids who did the montage of temples and the execution was flawless.

In the end the sculptures make a plea as to why temples have to be treated with certain respect and empathy - temples were the spaces which provided identity to the people in the past - priests and nobility apart but even sculptors, painters, masons, musicians, dancers, weavers and farmers all developed a stake in temples and indeed contributed towards it. People's identity then in terms of public spaces were constituted inter alia through temples and festivities just like today important markets, streets, theatres and shopping malls shape contemporary identities. Temples are reminders of our collective past.

The point is in this play there were no historic specificities - the year (except the fact that we were careful to mention as sometime in the early medieval period and not ancient period when India was basically Buddhist), the king was fictitious, the place, the temple itself, all were fictitious but yet I argue the play was historical since it captured the economic, social, political processes that transpired in medieval India. And that is more important I think in history to get a broader sweep rather than be bogged down completely ( I say completely here for it is still important for children or anyone not to completely loose sight of time frames, important events in that time frame, and the players in that event i.e. the whats, wheres and whens) by obsession with facts and sticking to those facts. In fact this was an attempt to expand the frontiers of history for children by using theatre as a tool of pedagogy.

At the end of the day I was wondering why in this school, especially its arts faculty which has the most proven and professional members, is the least seen and observed and hardly occupy much mindshare among faculty members, parents and even children alike? Are we underestimating their prowess? Is it also because verbally they are not articulate? and hence their presence and work goes unnoticed? Anyway good work Rajesh. Hope to work with him in future on certain select themes, in the realms of historical than history.

Using dumb charades to connect...

2008-02-21T20:30:00.013+05:30

For those eager to see me in action...here I'm! One thing that I have been noticing is the reticence and indifference of a sizeable number of students in most of my classes. Are these kids listening and if they are, is their listening and observation good enough? And another thing I wanted to ascertain was maybe the kids do understand stuff but they cannot express it in very articulate fashion either orally or in print. Third - how do I appear as a teacher? my diction? body language? my lingo? Am I communicative enough as a teacher? How effective are my teaching methods?

To bring these "passive" kids right into the heart of the teaching learning process I ended up using methods that involved using a child's kinesthetic and physical energies towards which a child has natural proclivities. Children had to use their kinesthetic ability to put across their cognition, recognition, understanding of concepts, individuals, process, events, places etc. All this goes by a more simpler name: i.e. dumb charades. Here I used dumb charades as an reinforcing activity - names, terms and events which we had dwelt on for the last one year in class VII I sought to reinforce. In dumb charades by breaking up the words, which as such remain just that for many kids - words, without having any contextual significance, I thought/think that it offers kids means by which they can reconnect to these words in a fashion which makes sense to them. Once the basic ground rules and common gestures were accepted it is up to the kid to make meaning of it and that too using body and sign language.

But did it? I notice/d few things - for many kids names like Gandhara Buddha were just that - names. Ditto for places, events or even concepts. For example when I whispered Pelopessian wars I got blank looks. Either these kids had forgotten or they registered nothing (the whats, wheres and whens) of the Peleponessian wars or Gandhara Buddha in the first place. Secondly words remained words. Kids were (as you will notice in the recording itself) trying to deal with the word phonetically and not with the meaning or association of the word. For example the child pointed me out to deal with the word "surplus" (Sir and then a + sign)...and another girl pointed to her socks to help her team mates crack the word "Socrates". It was clever but they were not as such dealing with the ideas or event the person is associated with or meaning of the concept or the historical context in their sign/body language. Well at one level that is what dumb charades are meant to be, is it not? And as you would notice I gave a similar demo my self. But in the end I was looking for more and hoped that some kids would transcend to do something more substantial. Guess I should have also given a demo where they attempt to look at the word not phonetically but more contextually. Will need to factor this in next time around I use dumb charades as a pedagogic tool.

So was this attempt of mine wasted? For my contention is the children need to internalize ideas and understanding and using such "brain based" methodology while at one level helped them to reconnect externally to certain names, events and places, it did not really reveal their understanding. Kids of course enjoyed the whole exercise and even those "smart" ones whom I had excluded out of this exercise wanted to be in the thick of it. But then, simply because children are having fun can that be seen as a learning exercise? Guess very often we confuse the two and activities that we have to offer hands-on learning to kids gets "reduced to fun".
But given the fact that this exercise of mine was confined to those "passive", "non responsive", "dull", "disinterested"...(the works)lot and also given the use of body language and "fun" they had in the process, in some future date I hope they would once again revisit and reconnect with the same terms, names, events from Ancient Greece, Rome, Buddhism etc with far deeper understanding and meaning.

A fascinating documentary on south Indian temples

2008-02-17T14:43:00.016+05:30

This is an interesting documentary on temples of south India particularly on the Cholas. It dwells in great lengths on the construction of the Vimana of the Brihadeswara Temple at Thanjavur. What is fascinating and impressive is the extent to which the film makers have gone in giving a very palpable feel of the temples - They try to recreate the process by which the huge granite blocks could have possibly been moved to built the vimana of the Brihadesvara temple. This documentary also underscores the fact how the Taj Mahal and the other Mughal monument which appealed a lot more to the British with their Victorian morality, eclipsed the temples of central and south India from popular imagination.
Thus it is Taj Mahal which continues to be associated with India and things Indian rather than temples. There are interesting insights into the social significance of temples and the social culture that temples embodied. This documentary certainly would make a fascinating watch for children while dealing with medeival south India.

Attempting Mauryas

2008-02-08T20:36:00.001+05:30

The pillar edict at Lauriya-Nandgarh, Bihar in Brahmi

Tried using this activity worksheet (click here) while dealing with the Mauryas and Asoka. The idea was to help children relate to Asoka's dhamma and make it personal for them and secondly I wanted to underscore the ethical aspect of Asoka's dhamma (and Asoka dhamma was basically a means by which Asoka sought to administer the empire) in contrast to the rather instrumentalist notions embedded in the Arthasahstra. I generally approach the Mauryan period more on the basis of the framework of Prof R S Sharma and less of Romilla Thapar. Prof Sharma, as one would expect from him, gives a materialistic view on the factors that lead to the strengthening of the Mauryas. Iron and its widespread use and Magadha's nearness to the rich iron ore deposits in the Gondwana belt gave Magadha that edge to dominate as a janapada over the other janapadas in the Indo-Gangetic belt.
Sharma also talks about topographical factors like the elevated location along with the forests in the vicinity which added to the "resource richness" of Magadha, which the Mauryas exploited to their advantage and built such an vast empire.But as and when the "material" advantage (use of iron and iron implements, pottery etc) had spread to other parts of the empire, that unique material advantage was lost and the Mauryas were eclipsed. (Source: Sharma, R.S.,Ancient India, NCERT, New Delhi, 1984) The other view is how Asoka's liberal dhamma which focussed on ethics helped to weld a vast geographic space even as he could have used force to bring people under his suzerainty. Such a conscious use of liberal, tolerant, non-violent and ethical principle was perhaps the first such attempt in Indian history where till that point in time people had come to see and accept subjugation only through war and struggle. Of course some may counter this with the example of Rama-rajya which was supposedly dharma rajya again. But this is more in the realms of mythology and less of history and even mythologically speaking Rama's reign has far too many blemishes to be characterized as ethical.

Punch marked Mauryan coins

While I did not get a very emphatic response when I tried to discuss the material factors that made Mauryas strong (save a few students), the former worksheet evinced a much more keener response from the large majority of students.

Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya's take on history textbooks- podcast

2007-12-30T19:31:00.000+05:30

Continuing with my series and critique of the ncert history textbooks I'm including a podcast of Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya's presentation on history textbooks at a seminar titled: History Textbooks and the Profession: Comparing National Controversies in a Globalizing Age, which was held in the University of Chicago in May 2007. Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya, currently professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has been responsible for the new ncert history textbooks which were written under his supervision by a team of academics. It is a very engaging presentation where Prof Bhattacharya raises several issues related to history texts in India and leads us to the circumstances which brought him and his team to write the current crop of textbooks. He also acknowledges criticisms, criticism not just by the Hindutva forces but even the left, which echoed some of my own reservations against this book.

Toiling for history - S Suresh

2007-12-27T14:26:00.020+05:30

Suresh puts across the significance of the panels at the Vaikunta Perumal temple to the kids...untiring passion!

Those familiar with my blog would notice couple of people who figure often in my accounts. People, who I think add lot of value to history and historical thinking. And to my mind there are not many in India who seek to do much to popularize history particularly among kids. In my humble opinion, while academic researches are fine and very much needed but ultimately the popularity and relevance of history depends largely on people who not only research but are eager to share those researches and understanding with the hoi polloi.

The prakara of the Vaikunta Perumal temple...a closer view of the panel, below

One such scholar is is S Suresh, historian and art history expert with whom my acquaintance goes some 20 years but acquaintance which was sporadic.

In 2006 with Suresh's guidance I had organised a study tour of the Cholas. This year (actually December 2007) it was a tour of the Pallavas again under his guidance. The thing about Suresh is the way he is able to simplify matters and put it in a format that children relate to well and enjoy. This time around his explanation of the Vaikunta Perumal temple in Kanchipuram was a revelation. By rights, Suresh who had undertaken a systemmatic study of this temple and the revealing insights he had to offer should have made to page one of our national dailies for his findings could result in a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of Indian history or what constitutes Indian historical sense. 'Common sense' has it that Indians understanding of past is all enmeshed with myths and puranas and our understanding of time is not linear. In other words Indians lack a sense of history - a truism, now part of the worlds' "common sense". But Suresh through his study of the sculptural panel that runs around the Prakara of the Vaikunta Perumal temple built by Nandivarman II Pallava, established the unfolding of Pallava history in linear and secular mode! And though in these panels there are references to myths and religious sanction is clearly sought, the panels talk of 18 coronations, important events in Pallava history, which includes even unflattering portrayals. For example there is this panel which depicts the rather brutal victimization of the Jains by the Pallavas. And then there are two panels left hollow to indicate turmoil, confusion in Pallava history that are best forgotten! Such a version of history put across in a sculptural narrative effectively puts a lid to the claim that Indians did not possess the mindset to look at time in more temporal terms.
This panel shows a Jain being held upside down and on the verge of being slaughtered...days of Hindu revivalism??

Suresh carried the kids along extremely well as he asked the kids to identify the panel of the coronation of 18 Pallava kings which naturally enough appears 18 times along the prakara. Then he often narrated a particular event and asked the kids which of the panels best described the event.
We also covered the Kailasnatha temple and Ekambarshwara temple at Kanchipuram, architecturally and sculpturally both more accomplished than Vaikunt Perumal but after the seeing the panels at the latter, the refined sculptures at Kailasnatha and the huge Vimana and the fascinating pillars of Ekambarshwara, did not seem to make as great an impression on me. Of course a study tour of the Pallavas without a visit to Mahaballipuram, is not complete. But heavy rains prevented us from going to the shore temple but did manage the Varaha cave and Arjunas penance.

So here it was again - a field visit where kids get to see, feel and experience the past as it were. How much the kids understood of the historical significance of the Vaikunt Perumal temple, I'm not too sure. (a look at the report will give one a better idea...) Thanks were all due to Suresh and like I was telling kids repeatedly lest they may assume that he was no more than a "guide" that Suresh with his doctorate in Roman antiquities and countless papers on south Indian coins, temple architecture in different seminars across the world and also an INLAKS scholar should by rights be occupying an archeology chair in JNU or Deccan College (if not Cambridge or Smithsonian!!). It was therefore so fortuitous for us and countless others who have benefited from his study tours which he so regularly conducts helping us all to gain first hand, an appreciation of south Indian heritage and history.

Keeping late hours to meet my deadline!!Kids put their heads together to finish their report on Pallavas...

I ensured that once students got back to the lodge they put their heads together and wrote a project report. I'm also enclosing what children had to offer as their understanding of Pallava history here. Please note some of the larger concerns which I highlighted in my earlier entry on the Chola tour, remained even here. In fact I continued with my study of temples even this term where along with tremendous support and inputs from my colleague Rajesh Chandran, the children sought to highlight the temples political and social significance through theatre and multimedia. More about it later.