The politicas of teaching Ancient History in Comtemporary India, Pakistan and Myanmar
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34024/herodoto.2021.v6.13770Keywords:
Teaching History, Ancient History, Nationhood, India, Pakistan, MyanmarAbstract
Education systems throughout Asia have their origins in processes of state formation aimed at countering imperialism, or furthering post-colonial nation-building. State elites across Asia have sought to popularise powerful visions of nationhood, to equip these visions with a historical ‘back-story’, and to endow these with sentimental charge. The history curriculum and textbooks construct the myths of origins and draw geographical, ideological, and affective boundaries to distinguish the nation from ‘others’. This article focuses on how the teaching of history – particularly ancient history in India, Pakistan and Myanmarhas been used as a political tool to underpin contemporary political discourse. It argues that the inclusion or exclusion of certain parts of history and the angle taken by the curriculum and textbooks is to ensure that children learn about the unbroken and ancient heritage of the dominant religious and ethnic group of the country. In creating this purity of self, history becomes the justifying vehicle for the routine discrimination ofothers, mainly ethnic and religious minorities.
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Textbooks used for quotes
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Class VI: India and the World (2003) by Makkhan Lal, Sima Yadav, B.K. Banerjee and M. Akhtar Hussain. New Delhi, NCERT.
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Pakistan
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