(Shobhaa De is an established writer, columnist, opinion shaper and social commentator, who is considered an authority on popular culture.)Who created a monster called Dinanath Batra? We did. The day this 85-year-old, self- styled intellectual (national executive of the RSS Education wing, Vidya Bharati), found himself in the eye of a major publishing storm (after successfully sabotaging Wendy Doniger's book on Hinduism), he started believing he is the ultimate Cerebral Superman. From an obscure retired Principal of a school, Dinanath Batra was catapulted into national and international prominence. All of a sudden, his 'academic' recommendations were taken seriously and it was this one person's unbridled wrath that decided the fate of several, well-researched tomes - reputed works which didn't fit into his skewed grid. Once Batra had the ultimate stamp of approval from Narendra Modi, he was on a roll. Batra now claims he has 'no connection' with Modi. But it was NaMo's generous endorsement of Dinanath's hysterically inaccurate text books, that made the Gujarat State Board of Education include them in the supplementary reading list for students.There are hefty print runs of 45k - 50k each of the 8 text books authored by Batra. You work out the math!
I definitely don't want my grand children to read Dinanath Batra's 'text books'.
I definitely want them to respect genuine Bharatiya Sanskriti by rejecting such drivel.
Any book that creates doubt, confusion, prejudice and eventual hatred in young, impressionable minds, is dangerous to society. It is un-modern and anti- progress. It limits and stunts a child's ability to think beyond propaganda. And as we all know, no propaganda is good propaganda.
Dinanath Batra needs a crash course not just in political correctness (I mean, using that obnoxious n-word... and then passing the buck on Dr. Radhakrishnan?), but basic facts. There are so very many bloopers in his eight books, it's difficult to list just a few.
If we lack the courage to stop this man right now, we will watch the spawning of several like him in the near future - Batra clones who grant themselves the authority to 'cleanse' our minds and hearts as per their perverse interpretations. Dinanath has committed intellectual fraud. It is an academic sin to unleash such books on children. How can civil society allow this individual to carry on with his ludicrous mission to 'cleanse' our society of all established aspects of our history, geography, anthropology and culture?
Academics like Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib have been unsparing in their criticism of these books. But is that enough? One can anticipate the backlash as Dinanath Batra types go into a huddle and plot whom to target next. When and where, being the questions.
Perhaps several tomes are under scrutiny right now. Dinanath's demolition squad has been active since 2008, when Delhi University buckled under pressure and removed AK Ramanujan's essay on the Ramayana from the history syllabus. Batra tasted blood. Had that not happened, one wonders whether he would have bothered to go after a Bhagat Singh reference in an NCERT text book in 2011. And then came his biggest coup - pressurising Penguin Books to pulp the Doniger book in 2014.
How can Dinanath Batra be halted? Or dissuaded from injecting this lethal virus that is corrupting young minds? It's one thing for academics to say (mildly and quasi-indulgently) we should dismiss his books as 'fantasy'. But as parents well know, one man's fantasy becomes a child's truth. Do we want our children to harbor wildly irresponsible views about our past?
I am as staunchly Bharatiya as my next door neighbor who is celebrating Eid today. Shravan has started and I will be fasting for four Mondays as I have for years.There is a family birthday coming up next week. I am definitely not organizing a 'havan'. But there will be our annual puja. And I am leaving it to my daughter to recite or not recite the Gayatri Mantra, which she knows. She is free to wear a saree or not where a saree on her special day. I am guessing it will be an LBD for the party with friends. The cake has been ordered. And she will be blowing out the candles, as she always has. One thing I do know, she would never ever use the 'N-word'. Nor denigrate somebody else's beliefs - religious, cultural or otherwise.
I would call young people like her (the majority in India), truly educated.
It is Dinanath Batra who needs to go back to school.
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