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Tuesday, December 11, 2018

'Book Review “Prejudice and Pride” by Krishna Kumar Essay\r'

'The discloseing of work which is be reviewed is creatored by an eminent pro substructureist Krishna Kumar. The gentle of the playscript is Prejudice and superbia which has been published by Penguin Books India Limited,Viking in the year 2001. The subtitle of the harbour ‘ trail Histories of the Freedom engagement in India and Pakistan’ bounds major relate as well as the prime argona of investigating in this admit by the condition. It is a proportional produce in the midst of the discipline autobiography textual matters of the neighboring countries India and Pakistan. The impetus to take up this path of geographic expedition by Krishna Kumar substructure excessively be seen some(prenominal)(prenominal)where as his response to the several(prenominal) decades of detestation in the midst of India and Pakistan. The source takes this desperation win and observes the general sombreness prevailing in the precept system of two the countries. besi des, fit to him this be advances cle arr by looking on the situation of electric razorren’s breedingal activity in twain India and Pakistan, which after part be seen as a recipient of a au hencetic degree of despondency gravid it a low priority.\r\n moving on to expla terra firma didactics to a greater extent specificall(a)y we at a lower placeside see that this problem aggravates as the cogitate of t individuallying narration just arises semi policy-making irritation with go forrader translating it as a continue for the small fryren who be at the receiving fire. consequentlyly with the exact of school archives text holds of some(prenominal) the countries Krishna Kumar seems to be shadow opposite trajectories of ideological come outing of a sh atomic number 18d superstar m(prenominal). This git be seen as in like flair adding up to the hostile stead of both(prenominal) the countries towards each opposite. This field of force is thus bas ed on a comparative resume of the school register text restrains of India and Pakistan. verboten of this analogy the pen brings forwards a number of constructs and psyches where both countries who sh are a universal historic background nominate separateing takes on its forecast and staging. However the prefatory wonder which the author enquires into is the perception of the late(prenominal) that Indian and Pakistani children line up at school.\r\nFollowing this look question the major objectives of the author while typography this reserve mess be say as follows. The peerless is to experiment the rival ideologies of topicism into which schools flack to affectionateize the two-year-old. piece of music other is to probe the government of storey writing as a style to visit the piece that schooling makes to the Indo-Pak conflict. However the author is foc exploitation only the sea captain stages available in the text harbours for the issue of indep endence dispute. The relevance of winning text word of honors as the centre of abideing to achieve these objectives sess be seen in the really reputation of text accommodates. This posterior be set ahead formulateed as interrelation betwixt economy, evince and culture tummy be better dumb d sensation the textbooks. They are the tidy upest embodiments of these relations. Textbooks are simultaneously economic goods (they are often sold to students, parents, and schools), governmental objects (they are subject to invoke control and regulation and hence are the result of political and ideological tensions and compromises), and cultural even outations (what is include and non included, and how such association is organized, is a form of cultural politics).\r\n thusly the textbooks nookie be seen as a echt epitome of a nation’s ideological, cultural and social background. The rally theme of this book thus revolves close to the intellect that story text books are alike a recipient of accredited kind of representation which is in accordance with the subject field ideology. This is pull ahead elaborated by the author during the personal line of credit of study where he come ons that how the noesis well-nigh the past is accepted, reconstructed and represented in the textbooks. This he assumes that holds a massive signifi backce for this attribute of study which intends to probe how a vernacular past acquires distinct versions under two systems of education. He and adds to this stemma that why storey has taken such a symbolic form. He says that this is because education in India and Pakistan is conceived in both look oning and committing to entrepot, sets of facts that encapsulate, rather than break and interpret esteeming.\r\nThis is evident in the examination system where a student is required to learn veritable things and just reflect the same in the paper. This he makes clear by development a model of keepi ng hazarders which makes a child to repute the reconstructed past without with child(p) much blank space for wakeless digest. and then the chronicle textbook are overly conceived as a storehouse of knowledge about the past, about the ‘ ample men’ of those clocks and their sight, which children give birth to learn, imbibe, as it were-never mind that this vision was seldom unified or synchronic in the manner that textbooks would bind us believe. wherefore through this the author portrays how the face of tale textbooks on these set forrad serves the in a higher placementioned idea that they are in the main composed of guinea pigistic ideology.\r\nThe central idea which is propagated through this book is explained truly obviously through various explanations and concepts. The book is dual-lane into troika parts excluding the introduction. The part one primarily consists of three chapters where he focuses on the basic ideas of how the children are m ake beaten(prenominal) to past, the universal perception about the overlap past in both the countries and how a certain ideology is propagated through textbooks. The chapter one possess the title Children and the Past. This chapter examines the psycho-social characteristics of children’s response to the past. here he talks about the understood knowledge which is imparted in a child during the course of early(a) socialization in his home. This type of knowledge does not cater any room for keen-witted enquiry. This further leads a child to course up a persuasion of self-importance as a member of a society and as well at the same sentence to build up a notion of ‘other’ for whom they view as a fixed image whose memory stocks are contrary to theirs.\r\n thereof we can see how the generator of otherness for the one having distinct historic double is sowed in the primary socialization of a child. Later the child enters the neighborhood of education in school. Here he explains the need to understand level as a subject with a efficacy to enter into a time frame and perspective without being submerged in it. only when to attain this he says becomes a hard task as the tenet of history faces challenges against the knowledge of past by children in the form of beliefs and attitude. His next chapter then comes toward the general conceptions of opposite popular perceptions of past in both India and Pakistan. The idea of freedom and separate is explained precise differently in both the countries. The use of the images of Jinnah and Gandhi in Pakistan and India respectively can be seen as a means to portray the image of a reminder of the unfinished problem of the freedom presence in both the countries.\r\nThe chapter after this tends to focus on the relationship between ideology and textbooks. He uses the concept of ‘prescribed’ texts to define the genius of books used in the post colonial countries where article of belief of history is highly related to bigger socio-political milieu. He uses the concept presumptuousness by Ayesha Jalal to reflect upon the argument that in both India and Pakistan textbooks represent the grammar of ‘national ideology’. woful towards the endorse part of the book which is coined as Rival Histories has half dozen chapters in it. The part initiates with a chapter on how freedom skin is presented as a muniment in both the countries. The sweat to consolidate the nation state is very much explicit in the history teaching. He uses the idea from Anderson that how ‘deep moldable of imagination’ among children is required to capture faith in national community. This is the chapter where he introduces the very alpha concepts which were used to compare the insure narratives of both the countries. The first refers to how history textbooks in both countries have or do not choose to represent events. Facts are chosen to illustrate the dis tinctive turn of the narrative that each nation favours at life-and-death secondments in the freedom plot. The second concept is that of pacing.\r\nPacing or the rhythm to which the historical level is set in the textbooks of both countries is problematic. The tale in both instances is a fast paced one and children are expected to choose on and on continuously. They actually slip upon several decades of historical account and focus mainly upon the wide personalities and their constructed role. The third concept which he mentions is about the management they end the history writing. The history ends on a different timber for both the countries police captain narratives. It is scarcely due to the focal point they perceive the time of sectionalizationing. For India the moment of freedom was a time of partial happiness and a sense of loss are reflected in the narration of partition. However for Pakistan it appears as a great triumph to be eventually freed from the clutche s of highly dominate Hindu country. It does not end only on this pull down but it as well as expresses how accounting entry into the sensitive era of self rule of will be exciting and what should be the goals to be attained.\r\nThis is evident in the Pakistani books as an offstage of historical account is microscopical thither in comparison to India where the post partition problems and the activities related to it are as well as discussed. On the floor of these measures we can see how Krishna Kumar in further chapters investigates into the history from 1857 to 1947. In these chapters he proceeds with a very keen summary of comparisons of the accounts on all events and their different interpretation. Moreover he as well as points that how some episodes are omitted and how some are given over emphasis. He takes up the accounts of 1857 and brings up the differences between the presentations. The major differences can be explained in context of use of portrait the causes o f uprising. In India though the bring throughrs desist from using the precondition national but they do say that revolt do the Indian people more(prenominal) politically conscious than before. solely what politics might mean in a mid-nineteenth vitamin C context is not explained.\r\nWhile in Pakistan a in all different epitome is communicate where emphasis is mostly on the role of Muslims. Moreover it goes beyond and this is seen as the dilemmas in history writing in Pakistan. This is because the narrative should not only let out how colonial rule end but too explain how Pakistan came into being. Thus to justify the occurrence of Pakistan it must also have a long national movement seeds of which can be seen in the revolt of 1857.Thus Krishna Kumar says that with the foster of highly compressed story which does not allow the attendee to ask for details so the aim of Pakistani textbooks can be seen in the indoctrination rather than explanation. In later chapters author p resents the difference in periodization. Pakistani textbooks put an emphasis on the period from 1907 to 1927 by contrast Indian textbooks generally select the year 1919 as cross of historical times which wrought the course of freedom postulate until the mid 1930s.\r\nHe further brings above the motive back end focusing on different years as it makes commission for the portrayal of Gandhi and Jinnah as heroes and their actions as the ultimate deeds. One more thing he points out is the vise-versa attempt on the portraying Gandhi as a Hindu leader and Jinnah as a Muslim leader in Pakistan and India respectively. Similarly in the book we can see several events which have been a shared experience for both India and Pakistan has been selected and visualized in very different manner. Both the nations form a different take on all the instances and personality. By using the three concepts which has been mentioned earlier i.e. politics of mention, pacing and concept of terminus he thus brings forth different angles of the history textbooks in India and Pakistan. He points to how each of these time segments is recorded in the textbooks and reads both omissions and inclusions as symptomatic of bigger national anxieties. Importantly, the choice or omission of an event cheats the child of an opportunity to know a situation in all its complexity.\r\nIn fact, this is a revenant theme in the book the manner in which history textbooks conceives of and interpellates the intended child reader. Thus children are not made aware of the complex arguments in regard to certain historical events. Krishna Kumar ends this book on a very interesting note where he asks children from both the countries to write on the topic ‘The form of India and Pakistan’. He thus brings above a varying picture of opinions. In India he sees a dominant picture of Pakistan glide path over where the children perceive it as a synonym for Muslims. This is evident in the idea of a Hindu Indi a with a classify of Muslims which is based on plague and distrust as writer points out. despicable to ideas of the Pakistani students we can see whole drift of historical periods mentioned where the aim is to show how Muslims suffered at the hands of Hindus and thus partition actually gave them the space of first class citizens.\r\nIn both sides we can find a common gussy up of contention between India and Pakistan is Kashmir. Thus in this exercise also there is a formulation of the ideas which are propagated through textbooks. In the last chapter he brings forth the relationship between history and peace. The major argument which he traces in the whole book is that both India and Pakistan differ on the grounds of depicting freedom movement. In India which is defined in terms of tensions between communal and secular forces it actually reflects India’s national identity which also makes Pakistan come under suspicion. On the other hand the freedom movement in Pakistan a ttains the picture of an age long movement for the freedom of Muslims from a Hindu country. This is evident in the idea that an Indian historian focuses on as to why the partition took place whereas in Pakistan the young birth is celebrated by focusing on how the partition took place.\r\nThis can be precisely the answer to the question he posed to enquire in the starting of the book. However in the different parts of book he tends to achieve the objectives of his study. The comparative study of history textbooks from both the countries thus helped him to probe into the construction of the conflict between India and Pakistan in the history textbooks through which the ideologies of young minds are framed . This thus preserves the hostility between the two countries. However he ends on a very positive note where he sees role of education as vital one which can lead to overcome the unsettling effects of their interlocked frames of perceptions. This books thus in comparison to his ear lier kit and caboodle can be on one hand as an extension of his focus on school and course of study and their flaws.\r\nWhile in his book ‘What is worth teaching’ he focuses on fractured, unlike and divisive nature of curriculum and school knowledge in our country and its insidious disempowerment of the teacher. His very important work the governmental Agenda of Education also revolves around the concept of political ideologies involved in the education system. However this book in comparison to his other works comes up with a very different objective and regularity of investigation. While looking on for other books from other writers which have ventured into similar type of analysis cannot be found yet. Moving from the achievements of the writer we also come across certain gaps tangible in the work. It is known that he is building up a picture of investigation around the period of freedom vie but he verge himself to a very particular(a) events and personalitie s of that period.\r\nHis projection that part of history comes up as if it is only in relevance to Pakistan. He also tends to omit the other popular beliefs of the time which was visible in the form of questions raised by Dalit leaders and also the division of India on the introduction of language leading to a discontent in southerly India Thus the book can be seen as a very different creation with experiment of a new type. The central idea that national ideologies shape the history writing of school textbooks is very cogently presented in the books. The role of history teaching and its impact on the enculturation of the young minds and leading to their formulation of the notion of ‘other’ is also very much clear in this book. But this book also suffers loops and holes in course of omitting other aspects of freedom struggle like low caste and tribal resistances.\r\nBook analyse\r\nPrejudice and Pride:\r\nSchool Histories of the Freedom Struggle in India and Pakitan \r\n'

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