National Identity and the HistoryCurriculum

Nation Making in the Shadow of Partition

Naureen Durrani, Ahmed Salehin Kaderi, and Kusha Anand

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2National Identity and History Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Dilemmas of Nation-Building: Colonial and Postcolonial Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Education and Nation-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Curriculum Frameworks and Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Curricular Approach to Nation-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Historical Revisionism and the Production of National Imaginaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12National Identity and the “Other” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

AbstractThis chapter explores the ways India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh use their sharedhistory to construct a national identity and promote social cohesion within theirrespective countries. The history curriculum in each country has undergonerevisions with a change in government in support of specific political ideologies.The relationship of religion to national identity remains fluid but central in eachcase. With some exceptions, the nation in each country context is discursivelyconstituted as seamlessly similar internally by invoking specific identity markers.

N. Durrani (*)Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstane-mail: naureen.durrani@nu.edu.kz

A. S. KaderiDepartment of Linguistics & Languages, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canadae-mail: ahsalkadra@gmail.com

K. AnandUniversity College London-Institute of Education (UCL-IoE), London, UKe-mail: k.anand.14@ucl.ac.uk

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020P. M. Sarangapani, R. Pappu (eds.), Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia,Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_41-1

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This draws boundaries against the external “other” but also excludes internal“others” who become “illegitimate” citizens. The implications of the historycurriculum on social cohesion and cross-border relations are discussed.

KeywordsHistory curriculum · Textbooks · National identity · Social cohesion · India ·Pakistan · Bangladesh

Introduction

Since the inception of the modern nation-state, the national education system hasbeen vital to nation-building, fostering “a distinct sense of nationhood, linguisticcohesiveness and cultural identity” (Durand and Kaempf 2014: 332). In contrast toolder European nation-states, most South Asian countries attained nation-statehoodrelatively recently, unfettering the shackles of colonial rule and emerging out of(violent and nonviolent) nationalist struggles. As newer nation-states, fragmentedinternally by divisive colonial governmentalities, postcolonial states in South Asiacontinue to be active sites of nation making. Like elsewhere, education has been animportant institution deployed in the South Asian contexts to forge cohesive nationalidentities and seek national distinction and differentiation from the “other.”

The history curriculum is central to the construction of a “national collective self-concept” and educating “successive generations about the frontiers of the nationalcommunity” and its relation to the “other” (Durand and Kaempf 2014, 333). Thischapter analyses the significance of history education in nation-building and theconstruction of national identity by drawing on the cases of India, Pakistan, andBangladesh. The three countries offer unique insights into the relationship betweenthe history curriculum and national identity construction, as they share a commonhistory. It is therefore insightful to explore how interpretations of this history varyacross and within each country. The chapter offers understandings of the wayshistory textbooks are enmeshed in the “politics of memory” in each country, payingparticular attention to the ways the nation is imagined against the “other” and theimpact such national imaginaries have on social relations within and beyond eachcountry.

The narration of the nation in school textbooks is not objectively laid out in orderto be understood in a passive manner by the reader, in this case, the authors of thischapter whose own identities are significant in the analysis of the literature reviewed.Each author had a responsibility for reviewing literature on each country context –the first author on Pakistan, the second on Bangladesh, and the third on India. In eachcase, the author is a bearer of national identity and has been a consumer of theeducational discourses of the respective countries whose texts are being reported.

The analysis offered has been constrained by two limitations. First, relativelyfewer sources on the topic were identified in the context of Bangladesh. Second, theliterature published predominantly deals with curriculum/textbook analysis or stake-holders’ – curriculum/textbook personnel or teachers – perspectives. Relatively little

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is known about how teachers enact the curriculum and what kinds of identitiesstudents develop as a result of exposure to the official and enacted curriculum. Suchstudies could only be identified in the context of Pakistan.

The next section outlines the theoretical framework and conceptualizes nationalidentity and the history curriculum. It is followed by situating India, Pakistan, andBangladesh in their colonial and postcolonial history, politics, and society. Thehistory of curriculum development with respect to history education in the threecountry contexts is then charted. The analysis presented constitutes two mainthemes: historical revisionism and national identity and its others. The concludingsection offers a discussion of the implications of the history curriculum and offerssome ways forward.

National Identity and History Education

National identity refers to the ways a nation “imagines” itself and distinguishes itselffrom “other” nations. The concept emerged first in the Americas and then Europe, aspart of anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles and is, therefore, a relatively modernidea. Its progressive institutionalization coincided with the development of officialnationalisms by nation-states. The nation-state is a form of governance concernedboth with “the security of particular territorial boundaries and the governing of thepeople within those boundaries” (Dunne et al. 2017: 30). The nation is imagined as acommunity of equals, but this masks the hierarchies that exist among different socialgroups living within the territorial boundaries of the state (Anderson 1991).

Imagining the nation involves the construction and circulation of narratives of thenation’s past and myths of its origins (Anderson 1991) and the policing of bound-aries of belonging through symbolic representation of different identity markers(Hall 1996). Discourses of the nation present it as “natural,” but national identity,like all identifications, is “a process never completed ‘but rather produced,reproduced and transformed through discursive practices’” (Hall 1996: 2). Althoughnational identities are invoked through a seamless sameness, devoid of internaldifferentiation, they are constituted through difference. In other words, the nationis identified “only through relation to the Other . . . its constitutive outside” (Hall1996: 4).

Differentiations were also central to the colonial project of large-scale landappropriation and dislocation of indigenous peoples, which was justified on moralgrounds given the supposed superiority of modernWestern forms of civilization overthe “barbaric” colonized people (Dunne et al. 2017). As Said (1978: 3) describes,Europeans used discourse, othering, and power/knowledge to manage and produce“the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically andimaginatively.” Importantly, Orientalism reified differences between communities,ethnic groups, and religious belief systems (Dunne et al. 2017). Group boundarieswere further entrenched through the ways colonial powers devolved local rule topreferred social groups through a combination of direct and indirect rule, resulting inthe consolidation of specific castes, ethnic, or religious groups as local elites. These

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colonial dividing practices meant that colonized people “achieved national indepen-dence organized as religious, ethnic and tribal communities” (Kabeer 2002: 14).

Educational discourses played an important role in the consolidation of themodern nation-state and naturalizing the idea of national belonging (Green 2013).Particularly, education is explicitly deployed at times when a new national identity isto be fostered to secure the ideological basis of the polity. The national educationsystem through its curriculum and officially sanctioned textbooks plays a significantrole in the national identity construction, the portrayal of the “other” as well asinternational relations (Lall 2008; Green 2013). While the role of the historycurriculum and nation-building projects is seen as pivotal, this needs to be studiedempirically in specific contexts (Jaskułowski et al. 2017). Toward that end, it isimportant to unpack the ways the curriculum is understood in this chapter.

The term “curriculum” includes its production, implementation, consumption,and outcomes for different social groups. All of the above stages involve the exerciseof power manifested in what is included and what gets excluded, amidst contesta-tion, and resistance. Any analyses of the curriculum and its outcomes should includethe explicit (official), the implicit (the hidden), and the null (the excluded) curricu-lum (Eisner 1985). The official curriculum is much broader in scope, including theplanned program of objectives, content, learning experiences, textbooks, and otherlearning resources and assessment, but in several contexts including Bangladesh,India, and Pakistan, it is often conceptualized narrowly and is equated with syllabiand textbooks. The hidden curriculum refers to the intended or unintended curricu-lum that results in students learning a range of things (attitudes, opinions, emotions,values, identities), not from the written curriculum but simply from the experience ofbeing in school (Kelly 1999). The hidden curriculum is more subtle in contrast to thenull curriculum which refers to the objectives, contents, knowledge, skills, intellec-tual processes, values, attitudes, and emotions that are excluded from the officialcurriculum. In other words, we teach things by not teaching them. For example, ifstudents are not taught the religious or cultural diversity that exists within a country,they may see the nondominant religious or cultural groups as “illegitimate” or“inauthentic” members of the nation. Thus, what is absent from the curriculum isprofoundly significant to students’ identifications. All forms of curriculum exercisesymbolic violence by reproducing and masking relationships of power in society(Bourdieu 2001) through enabling students to actively identify with the officialimaginaries of the nation which are ostensibly aimed at producing national unitybut in effect serve “to strengthen the dominant, rather than weaken it” (Advani 1996:2081).

The school history serves the dual function of transmitting historical knowledgeand creating a shared desired national identity (Carretero et al. 2013). It constructsthe myths of origins and draws geographical, ideological, and affective boundaries todistinguish the nation from its “others.” This is achieved through processes ofinclusion and exclusion, though not without contestation. Particularly, in dividedsocieties, the past and its interpretations are deeply contested and controversial.Hence the struggles over the contents of the (history) curriculum represent “cultural”or “identity” wars, and the wider political context is deeply implicated in such wars

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(Durrani and Dunne 2010). Therefore, a change in political regime in a specificnational context results in curriculum revision and reform (Haydn 2012). The historyportrayed in the textbooks is further supported by extra- or cocurricular activities,such as school assemblies, and celebrations and commemoration of national eventsin schools. Although some progress has been made in adopting an interdisciplinaryapproach to school history or decentering dominant understandings of the pastthrough the presentation of alternative views, evidence from around the worldsuggests that national education systems have been teaching history to promotepatriotism and identifications with the national past (Carretero 2017). Other issueshighlighted in relation to the teaching of history include the construction of thenation against the “other,” the portrayal (or lack of) internal social conflicts, andpedagogic barrenness that equates information with knowledge (Advani 1996;Kumar 2001).

Teachers have an important role in the enactment of curriculum and textbooks.Their sociocultural and political background, imagination of the “self,” and percep-tions of the “other” might lead them to agree with, submit to, defy, resist, or selectparticular textbook messages or contents (Horner et al. 2015). In practice, teachershave been found to see school history through the prism of nationalism, leading themto privileging the nationalization of students (Jaskułowski et al. 2017). The con-sumption of history by students is also subject to negotiation based on their socialpositioning and axes of identifications, as well as the alignment of school historywith everyday history, particularly family narratives of the past.

Dilemmas of Nation-Building: Colonial and PostcolonialTrajectories

In 1947, the partition of British India along religious lines resulted in the formationof the sovereign states of the Hindu-dominated India and the Muslim-dominatedPakistan. Between 1947 and 1971, contemporary Bangladesh was one of Pakistan’sprovinces and called East Bengal until 1953 and East Pakistan until 1971. Afteranother violent partition in 1971, mobilized on ethnolinguistic difference, Bangla-desh attained sovereignty as a nation-state. The territories constituting contemporaryIndia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have a long history that continues to offer areference point for the present and the past with respect to national imaginaries.

The entrenchment of religious identities that ultimately resulted in the partition ofIndia stands in stark contrast with the region’s religious, ethnolinguistic, and culturaldiversity. Thapar (1989) claims that collective identities in India were intersected bylocality, language, caste, occupation, and sect. She substantiates by drawing atten-tion to Arabic texts in which Al-Hind referred to a geographical identity andincluded all people living on this land. Likewise, the new arrivals – Muslims –were not identified by Indians “as a unified body of Muslims” but on ethnic basis asTuruska or Turks or on geographical basis as Yavana, i.e., West Asian (Thapar 1989:223). Furthermore, she points to similarities between social hierarchies betweenhigh-caste Muslims claiming foreign descent (ashrafs) and the rest of Muslims and

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“the social difference between brahmanas and non-brahmanas” (Thapar 1989: 224).Finally, she highlights the intermingling of rituals and mythology across religiousboundaries. Of course, this is not to suggest that the relationship between Hindus andMuslims was either “one of peaceful coexistence or total cultural integration” butrather that both groups identified one on the basis of distinct castes and sects along asocial hierarchy rather than strictly in terms of a homogenous religious identity(Thapar 1989: 225).

The essentialization of religion in India is traced to Orientalist knowledge pro-duction, the census, and representational politics as mutually interlinked factors(Gottschalk 2000). To manipulate Indian human and material resources for colonialinterests, the Indian society had to be “known” first. Three technologies of knowl-edge – historiography, ethnography, and statistics – were utilized to objectify Indiansociety. The Orientalist discourse constructed Indian civilization through its mono-lithic religion, Hinduism, and established “barbaric” Islam as a cause of its demise(Gottschalk 2000). Second, the census was used for using religion and caste as themain markers for boxing collectivities into fixed categories. Finally, representationalpolitics led to the use of religious discourse to become “a tool for translocal politicalmobilization” and the entrenchment of exclusive group identities (Gottschalk 2000:28). Thus, Orientalism and British colonial governance were pivotal to Hindus andminority religious communities reimagining themselves as internally unified andhomogenous in order to compete over power, political representation, and economicresources (Thapar 1989).

Religious imaginaries thus played a critical role in the development of national-ism in colonial India. Elite Indians held two distinctive visions of national identity.The first vision was based on the construction of a modern secular state along thelines of Western democracy, as purported by the Indian National Congress, and thesecond was built on “religion and the establishment of either a Hindu or an Islamicpolity in the Indian subcontinent” (Markowits et al. 2002: 451). In 1940, Muham-mad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), Pakistan’s founding father and its first GovernorGeneral, argued that Muslims and Hindus constituted two distinct nations, eachdeserving a separate state. Both Muslim and Hindu elite groups, in economic andpolitical competition, contested internally and across religious boundaries over themeaning of national identity. Ultimately, Jinnah’s version of national identitybecame victorious as the majority of the Muslim masses, who were until thendivided by regional, ethnic and linguistic boundaries and interests, drew on theirshared religion to recognize one another as members of a political community.

The partition of India along religious lines resulted in the biggest migration inrecorded history with over 14.5 million people crossing borders on both sides,amidst large-scale communal violence which claimed over 1 million lives and ledto the rape of an estimated 75,000 women (Butalia 2000). Religion and the specter ofan antagonistic external “other” continue to shape national identity constructionpost-independence in both India and Pakistan. Post-independence, the two countrieshave gone to war in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999 and have an ongoing nuclear andmilitary race and intermittent escalation of conflict over Kashmir.

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Post-independence, India’s national identity is defined by emphasizing threeinteracting themes, geography, culture, and religion, resulting in two dominantversions, the secular nationalist and Hindu nationalist, with the former couplinggeography with culture and the latter yoking geography and religion (Sridharan andVarshney 2001). India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), imag-ined Indian identity as inclusive of all religious groups by linking it to collectivehistory and geography. However, secular nationalism has gradually given way toHindu nationalism which has been in existence since the British times but hadremained relatively weaker politically until the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in the 1990s. As the Congress party, India’s main integrative political institu-tion, decayed over time, Hindu nationalists offered themselves as institutional andideological alternatives (Varshney 1993). Separatist movements in Punjab andKashmir in the 1980s, as well as the political rise of BJP in recent times, havestrengthened the Hindu Right. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its“Sangh Parivar” have since attempted to homogenize the Hindu community tointegrate a sense of Hindu national identity. Hindu nationalism pursues “building aunited India as well as “Hinduizing” the polity and the nation” (Varshney 1993:232). The inclusion of Muslims and other minorities is premised upon assimilationand the acceptance of the political and cultural dominance of Hinduism, failingwhich “Hindu nationalism becomes exclusionary, both in principle and practice”(Varshney 1993: 232). The Hindu right depicts the “other” as “dehumanized” and“dangerous.” For instance, Muslims are considered as “immoral,” “barbaric,” “vio-lent,” “backward,” “dirty,” and “fanatic” (Anand 2005: 206–207). The RSS con-structs the “other” both within and outside the country (particularly Pakistan). InIndia, like elsewhere, the production and reconstruction of national identity is acontested process “accompanied by an enormous degree of violence, both physicaland epistemic” (Krishna 1994).

Moving the focus now to Pakistan, religion was the marker deployed for politicalmobilization. The traumatic events surrounding partition and conflictual relationswith India post-independence made Islam central to Pakistani identity and anantagonistic non-Muslim “other” vital to collective memory. After its creation,Jinnah expressed his commitment to a secular polity in which “religion or caste orcreed” would have “nothing to do with the business of the State” and in which allcitizens would be “equal citizens of one State” (Jinnah 1948: 10). However,Pakistan’s political leaders’ resolve to keep religion separate from politics startedweakening soon after its creation. In the early days of Pakistan, Islam was invokednominally to forge unity among population who were ethnolinguistically and cul-turally diverse and whose incorporation into the state apparatuses, particularly themilitary was unequal. But, when the underprivileged ethnic groups started protestingagainst Punjabi dominance of state institutions, “Islam and Islamic brotherhood [sic]became the order of the day” (Alavi 1988: 106). Instead of accommodating culturalpluralism, both military and civilian regimes have used Islam to legitimize staterepression and coercion, and after the secession of East Pakistan, Islam has beendeployed to counter ethnic nationalism. Both the military and the religious right werefurther strengthened by Pakistan’s status as a frontline state, first in the Western-led

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alliance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and later, since 2001, inthe US-led “War on Terror” in Afghanistan. This resulted in the rise of militantgroups who violently impose their version of national identity on religious minoritiesand minority Muslim sects. Furthermore, the Pakistani state appropriates the right todefine who counts as Muslim and therefore uses Islam to govern its Muslimcitizenry. The coupling of religion and national identity in Pakistan has led to theexclusion of non-Muslim citizens as well as Muslim minority sects that differ fromthe dominant Sunni Islam.

Finally, moving to Bangladesh, Bengali Muslims had long struggled for socialjustice and equity under the British by focusing particularly on the needs of theBengali Muslim peasantry (Khan 1985). Bengali Muslim nationalism prioritizedregional interests of Bengali Muslims rather than Islamic revivalism. Nevertheless,in the 1946 elections when Bengali Muslims were faced to choose between India andPakistan, they overwhelmingly voted in favor of Muslim League candidates. Insteadof building on Bengalis’ initial commitment to Pakistan, the state “alienated [them]by pursuing a policy of one nation, one language and one culture, to the detriment ofBengali interests” (Murshid 2001: 98). Bengali political elites continually protestedagainst their exclusion from state apparatuses and institutions and demanded justiceand democracy. The imposition of a monolithic national identity and autocraticcentralized rule by West Pakistan over East Pakistan fueled a nationalist movement,which Pakistan’s civil-military oligarchy treated as a counterinsurgency exerciserather than a political problem (Cohen 2005). In December 1971, after a violent civilwar with the Bengalis and a war with India, East Pakistan seceded, and an indepen-dent Bangladesh was born. Post-independence, the Bangladeshi Constitution wasbuilt on secular principles. Under its first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman(1920–1975), Bangladeshi identity drew on language and culture for unity andsolidarity rather than religion. However, support for Mujib’s secular ideology startedwaning “when the Indian desire to treat Bangladesh as a client state becameapparent” (Khan 1985: 848). Furthermore, secular nationalism found little supportamong the masses for which Islam offered the ideological spine for political devel-opment in the country. Mujib’s successor “Ziaur Rehman often adjusted his secu-larist position to meet conservative demands, at home and abroad” (Khan 1985:849). In the post-Ziaur Rahman era, President Hussain Muhammad Ershad createdyet another brand of Bangladeshi nationalism, implementing Islam as the statereligion (Codron 2007). While the shift from Bengali nationalism to Bangladeshinationalism was supposed to integrate the Hill peoples of Bangladesh who do notidentify themselves as Bengali, in effect, it excluded them doubly, i.e., both on thebasis of culture and religion. Currently, both major political parties – the BangladeshNationalist Party (BNP) and the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), a secularistparty – continue to offer concessions to Islamists (Khondker 2016).

The preceding discussion highlights that the political landscape in all threecountries is deeply marked by contestations over competing notions of nationalidentity and nationalism. While national identity in all three contexts has shifted overtime, particularly with respect to the role of religion to national identity, the notion of

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the “other” has shaped national identity construction to a lesser or greater extent inall three countries.

Education and Nation-Building

While mass education in Europe in the nineteenth Century was mobilized toconsolidate the nation-state and help construct the citizen, in India Western educa-tion primarily sought the construction of a “Westernised elite capable of participatingin the administration of the colony, albeit without full citizen rights” (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007, p. 153). Education for the masses focused on basic elementary educa-tion designed to fulfill occupational needs of distinct social groups. Under Britishcolonialism, local Indian educational knowledge and traditions were seen as sym-bolizing ignorance and were therefore rejected in favor of “modern,” “rational,”Western, often Christian education, with the school curriculum and pedagogy largelycontrolled by Christian missionaries (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007). While this leftIndian learners largely divorced from the knowledges and skills that existed outsidethe school, isolating them from everyday reality and their cultural milieu (Kumar2005), Western education promoted the ability to critique cultural norms, practices,and behavior (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007).

Curriculum Frameworks and Institutions

Post-independence, all three countries have developed institutional bodies andframeworks for the deployment of educational discourse in perfecting citizens andfostering nation-building. In India, the National Council for Educational Researchand Training (NCERT) is a Central Government institution authorized to designcurriculum frameworks and curriculum standards for entire India and textbooks,which are used across schools in India, affiliated to the Central Board of SecondaryEducation (CBSE) (Naseem and Stöber 2014). The use of textbooks published bythe NCERT is mandatory in public schools, and many private schools also use thesame textbooks. In Pakistan until 2010, the state held a tight control on officialknowledge through a national curriculum produced by the Curriculum Wing of theFederal Ministry of Education. The four provincial textbook boards implemented thenational curriculum through the production of textbooks and teacher guides. TheFederal Supervision of Curricula and Textbooks and Maintenance of Standards ofEducation Act, 1976, authorized the Curriculum Wing to review all textbooks andrecommend the amendment/deletion/rejection of a part or the whole of any textbook(Durrani and Dunne 2010). Since 2010, curriculum development has been devolvedto provinces, but all provinces have maintained the National Curriculum 2006 withsome minor adjustments. While it is no longer obligatory for public schools toexclusively use textbooks published by provincial textbook boards, a stringentreview process ensures the inclusion of state narrative on national identity (Durraniet al. 2017). In Bangladesh, all schools and madaris (religious schools), whether or

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not funded by the state, have to use the National Curriculum and Textbook Board(NCTB) provided textbooks and teacher guides. However, schools following “O”and “A” level UK education system enjoy some exemptions.

Curricular Approach to Nation-Building

In all three countries, nation-building is a core aim of the history curriculum. InIndia, the National Curriculum Frameworks (NCFs), written by the NCERT asguidelines for national education, have always maintained the importance ofnation-building, regardless of the political party in power (Guichard 2010). Simi-larly, the forging of national unity remains an explicit aim of the curriculum inPakistan (Halai and Durrani 2018). Likewise, policy texts in Bangladesh give greatprominence to the building of national identity and the evocation of “the emotiverhetoric of the liberation struggle” (Unterhalter et al. 2003: 92).

In India, the approach to curriculum planning toward fostering national identitydepends on the political party in power. For example, the BJP sought to legitimizereforms concurring with its ideological outlook, at the same time as it avoidedattention to any socioeconomic differences undermining its conception of Hindusolidarity. The history curriculum and textbooks play a fundamental role inexplaining the basis of citizenship in the minds of individuals. History teachingresponds to citizenship issues such as identity, values in the diversity of humanexperiences, global citizenship, social and cultural diversity, moral thinking, conflictresolution, and the development of democracy. Social Studies is taught until grade10. It is a significant subject for learning the nation and constructing the nationalcitizen in India.

Pakistan uses an integrated approach toward fostering national identity andhistorical memory in and through education. While all core subjects embed lessonson national belonging and difference including languages, Islamiat or Islamicteaching, since grade 3 through to grade 8, “Social Studies” which combines lessonson history, geography, and civics is a key educational site for constructing thePakistani citizen (Durrani and Dunne 2010). In grade 10, a compulsory and assessedsubject, “Pakistan Studies” is dedicated to perfecting citizens and promoting nationalcohesion. In addition, at the secondary level (grade 9–10) students in the humanitiesstrand may choose to study “Islamic History” (grade 9) or “History of Indo-PakSubcontinent” (grade 10).

Like Pakistan, Bangladesh also uses an integrated approach toward buildingnational identity by educating young citizens about the history of Bangladesh. Asa prime example of such education, “Bangladesh and Global Studies” grade 1–10curriculum explicitly combines social studies, geography, history, civics, and citi-zenship lessons. These lessons are particularly focused on teaching young citizensabout how Bengali nationalism and then eventually Bangladesh was created throughstruggles against the British and mainly Pakistani injustice (Bickmore et al. 2017;Kaderi 2014). These texts are compulsory for all grade 1–8 students and grade 9–10Science stream students. While grade 9–10 students in the Humanities stream have

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such compulsory lessons in “The History of Bangladesh and World Civilization,”“Geography and Environment,” and “Economics, Civics, and Citizenship” curricu-lum, similar curricula are optional (students may choose to take one out of manyoptional subjects) for Business stream students (Bangladesh 2012). However,“Bangla” and “English” curricula represent lessons around the particular historymentioned above in all grades in all streams and explicitly in higher grades throughliterary texts such as poems and proses. Unlike Pakistan, religious education doesnot seem to explicitly center on any history related to national identity issues.Nevertheless, “Islam and Moral Education’ curriculum is all about building“good,” God-fearing, and law-abiding citizens, which is a big element of nationalidentity building in a country of about 90% Muslims.

Schools teach history not only through the official curriculum and textbooks butalso through the ways the nation is remembered and commemorated in schoolceremonies. In India, every August 15, schools arrange for an Independence Dayparade in which all students must participate compulsorily. Students start theirrehearsal for this D-day a month in advance after school hours. Schools in the centerand states hoist the tricolor and sing patriotic songs. The national anthem is part ofthe school curriculum and the singing of Vande Mataram (Indian national song) iscompulsory in civic schools in India. Furthermore, the RSS expanding educationprogram, which also includes an estimated 12,363 formal schools, attempts to“Indianise, nationalise and spiritualise” education and has received much criticismfrom academia and the media for endorsing Hindu nationalism and profoundmajoritarianism in schools (Mohan 2016).

In Pakistan, schools hold a morning assembly which begins with the recitation ofverses from the Qura’n, singing of national/patriotic songs and the national anthem.The Independence Day (14th of August) and Pakistan’s Resolution Day (23rd ofMarch) are celebrated with display of the national flags and debates and speechcompetitions. The 1965 war with India is commemorated in schools and at the statelevel with great pomp and show (6th of September – Defense Day), but the 1971defeat of Pakistan is not remembered and forms part of the null curriculum.

Likewise, Bangladeshi schools celebrate the history of the formation of Bengalinationalism and the independence of Bangladesh through the national anthem andoath assembly every morning. The oath and the anthem remind the young citizensthat Bengali national identity and the independence of Bangladesh were achievedthrough long struggles against oppression and violence. They emphasize the needfor the citizens to be honest, patriotic, and dutiful to protect the country’s sover-eignty. The Bengali victory in the war of 1971 against Pakistan is celebrated twice ayear: once during the Independence Day (March 26) and once during the VictoryDay (December 16). Schools perform the history of the 1971 war on these 2 days byparticipating in government arranged cultural and military demonstrations.

The next two sections synthesize the main findings emerging from the literaturereview.

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Historical Revisionism and the Production of National Imaginaries

Educational discourse, including the nation’s history, is a powerful text that con-structs national imaginaries and offers students powerful identity positions foridentification and affective attachment. Curriculum and textbook writers, who areoften commissioned by the state, are more concerned with fostering specific politicalideals and social values in the mind of students than getting a balanced historiogra-phy. In order to imagine the nation in ways desired by the state, history textbooksoften omit or ignore inconvenient facts, twist the logic of cause and effect, or denyeven simple chronology (Rosser 2003). Such inclusion and exclusion are applied tonational icons to align their character and actions with the ever changing imaginationof the nation. The same processes of omission and inclusion are utilized to markother historical actors as the “other.” Historical revisionism is evident in schooltextbooks in colonial India as well as post-independence in all three countries.

By the late nineteenth century when the British had firm control over India and allsoldier and peasant revolts had been crushed, the colonial administration saw thegradual emergence of a new challenge – nationalism from the nascent middle class.Historiography was utilized to contest this nationalism. Consequently, the history ofIndia was reduced to invasions, the most prominent of whom were depicted asMuslim invaders, occupying and settling in India. This was a history of strifebetween Hindu and Muslim communities, which was brought under control by thearrival of the British (Thapar 2009). Avril Power’s (1999) analysis of historytextbooks in colonial India reveal that the history of Islam’s encounter with India’sindigenous religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism – was depicted in differ-ent ways depending on the perspective of the author and that different portrayalshave been the subject of much controversy and debate (cited in Rosser 2003).

Historical revisionism in post-independence India was aimed to distance theIndian past from that written under the imperial auspices (Thapar 2009). In partic-ular, the NCERT history series 1, in line with Nehruvian ideology of the separationof religion from nationalism, attempted to promote a secular identity for learners(Kumar 2007). During the first 50 years of independence, the state was largelysuccessful in sustaining a secular socialist identity within academic discourse.Nevertheless, the NCERT textbooks have come under attack for downplaying “the“gory” details of the Islamic conquests in northern India, or the “cruel” Inquisitionby Portuguese Christians in Goa,” to help integrate religious minority learners intothe nation (Rosser 2003: 268). Additionally, criticism was raised by Hindu and Sikhgroups for not glorifying their respective religions or religious teachers (Thapar2009). A major shift in the historical narrative within educational discourse cameunder the BJP government (1998–2004), when education policy was used as a toolto promote and circulate its Hindu nationalist ideology. In 2000, the Hindu Nation-alist organization established a National Curriculum Framework (NCF) with theslogan of “Indianise, nationalise and spiritualise” (Lall 2008: 158). The NationalCurriculum Framework (NCF) 2000 emphasized the prevailing conflict betweenopposing visions of national identity to influence the public as well as the political

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discourse of India for two decades. The foremost objective of the subject of historywas emphasized as the “national spirit” and “national consciousness” by promptingpride among the youngest generations about India’s past or distinctive religio-philosophical ethos, presented as Hindu (Lall 2008: 176). Academics and secularor liberal authors contested these measures, and the left-wing groups criticized theSangh Parivar’s ideological efforts to recast history (Lall 2008). When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) defeated BJP led party in 2004, the UPAgovernment sought to “detoxify” school education (Guichard 2010: 5). The NCERTproduced another National Curriculum Framework (NCF) in 2005 which consideredthe social science subject as central to delivering knowledge for the construction of afair and peaceful society. The NCF 2005 viewed the social science subject as animportant subject for delivering knowledge to construct a fair and peaceful society.The NCF 2005 tried to move away from the Left and Right of history by bringingattention to educational experiences children had inside schools. It advocated anexperiential, critical, and constructivist epistemology and pedagogy and moved thefocus from children’s “ability to reproduce textual knowledge” to their ability tointegrate “their experiences with school knowledge” (NCF 2005: 13). The NCF2005 responded to “Yashpal Committee Report” (1993: 5) critique of Indian text-books for being geared predominantly to “convey information or “facts”, rather thanto make children think and explore.” The post NCF 2005 history textbooks “providea multiplicity of contradictory perspectives,” supporting students “to arrive at theirown understanding of given information” (Batra and Nawani 2010: 255). Further-more, textbooks highlight the plurality of Indian society by foregrounding theinclusion of ethnic minorities, women, and rural society (Batra and Nawani 2010:255). However, since the ascension to power in 2014, the BJP government underPrime Minister Modi has been redefining Hindutva by combining growth, national-ism, and Hindu identity (Flåten 2017). The draft New Education Policy (NEP) 2019offers two perspectives: first, it directs the idea of “national cohesion,” and, second,it deteriorates the spirit of “secularism” by supporting a model of nationalist educa-tion that is the core of the Hindutva ideology (Sharma 2016).

The case of Pakistan similarly indicates the active pursuit of historical revision-ism in textbooks. However, unlike India where the official narrative vacillatesbetween a secular and an exclusively Hindu national identity, the trend in Pakistansuggests a gradual ascendance toward an exclusively Muslim national identity. Boththe form and the role of Islam in relation to national identity have changed over time.These shifts are reflected in policy texts and school textbooks.

To restructure the colonial education system, an all Pakistan Education Confer-ence was convened in November 1947. Fazlur Rahman, then the Education Minister,considered training in religion as an essential feature of education for citizenship.

The provision for instruction in the fundamentals of religion in schools is, therefore, aparamount necessity for without such knowledge we cannot hope to build character or laythe foundation for an adequate philosophy of life. (cited in Durrani 2008: 29)

National Identity and the History Curriculum 13

The next major policy document, the Sharif Commission Report 1959 under theMartial Law Government of Ayub Khan, identified a lack of national unity as one ofthe major challenges that education needed to address. In order to strengthen nationalunity, a uniform curriculum was developed and government prescribed books wereintroduced from classes 1–12. Religious education was made compulsory at theelementary level. Saigol (2007) claims that Ayub Khan invoked a liberal form ofIslam capable of making Pakistan a modern nation while at the same time protectingit from the threats of regional and ethnic identities. Saigol (2014) illustrates that upuntil the 1960s, textbook context largely reflected the secular principles enshrined inPakistan’s constitution. For example, a history textbook published in 1963 includedand offered positive portrayal of non-Muslim personalities – Rama, Buddha, andChrist and Mahatma Gandhi (Saigol 2014).

When Pakistan’s national identity received a huge blow from the breakaway ofBangladesh in 1971, Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto introduced Islamic socialism inpolitical discourse. Under his government, a National Curriculum Bureau was set upto revise the curriculum. Islamiat was made a compulsory subject up to class X forMuslim students. Post 1971, textbooks emphasized Pakistan’s difference from theIndian “other,” and Social Studies textbooks explicitly denigrated all non-Muslims –Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, and Christians (Saigol 2014).

Educational discourse became overtly religious under the Military Government ofGeneral Zia-ul-Haq. The religious right and the military in Pakistan joined hands andwere both supported by the USA and its allies to tackle the Soviet Union whichinvaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Education Policy of 1971, produced under Zia,sought the construction of citizens who are true practicing Muslims. Curriculumrevision was initiated which aimed to reorganize “the entire content around Islamicthought” and give “education an ideological orientation so that Islamic ideologypermeates the thinking of the younger generation” (cited in Durrani 2008: 31). Thetextbook discourse under Zia emphasized militarization and exhorted learners “toremain forever prepared to defend the country” and the “historical narratives mir-rored the existential anxieties of a state threatened with annihilation” (Saigol 2014:178).

After 9/11, international politics impacted both on Pakistan’s politics and educa-tion. In terms of political discourse, General Musharraf introduced “enlightenedmoderation” to differentiate practicing “modern Islam” from “fundamentalistIslam.” With respect to education, the revision of the curriculum was initiated,funded by USAID, resulting in the production of the National Curriculum 2006.Although it was largely believed that the curriculum was “de-Islamized” and theHistory Curriculum would cover the Indus Valley civilization and the Aryan Era(Lall 2009), more recent literature does not support such optimism. Although therevised curriculum is largely seen as more inclusive, the involvement of internationalactors, particularly the USAID, alienated “a range of stakeholders including curric-ulum and textbook personnel and teachers, which ‘limited the scope of the reformand hindered its implementation” (Durrani et al. 2017: 16).

Like India and Pakistan, the historical narrative in Bangladeshi textbooks islinked to the political regime in power. Post-independence, the Mujib era textbooks

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written in 1972–1973 presented history through the lens of Bengali nationalism,with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a central figure. When the military took controlbetween 1975 and 1991, textbooks adopted “a distinctively anti-Indian orientation”(Rosser 2003: 146). While the narration of ancient and medieval periods remainedunchanged, more recent, events “were altered to suit the military leaders” (Rosser2003: 147). However, because of Bengalis’ “long tradition of intellectualism,”textbook authors resisted the pressure to radically rewrite history resulting in slowand haphazard changes (Rosser 2003).

After the restoration of democracy in 1991, the two main political parties – BNPand the Awami League – have both rewritten history textbooks to support theircontrasting political ideologies, without much resistance from NCTB personnel.Rosser (2003) claims that government officials and bureaucrats are roughly dividedin their support of BNP and the Awami League due to which contents of textbooksare rewritten fairly quickly with the change of government. When the BNP won thefirst election in 1991, no changes were introduced in the textbooks produced underthe military regimes. After the Awami League came to power in 1996, “theyenergetically rewrote the textbooks to correct what they perceived as two and ahalf decades of history distorted by military imperatives” (Rosser 2003: 148). Inparticular, the textbooks highlighted the role of Islamic parties who sided with thePakistan Army against the Bengali freedom fighters, extolled Sheikh Mujib’s con-tributions to the creation of Bangladesh and downplayed the role of President Zia,founder of the BNP.

In 2001, the Awami League was defeated and the BNP formed the new govern-ment with the support of Islamic parties. The passages introduced by the AwamiLeague were removed from textbooks. President Zia, whose widow was then at thehelm of government, was glorified for his contributions to Bangladesh’s creation,while the contributions of Sheikh Mujib were diminished. Importantly, references tothe genocide of Bengali intellectuals in 1971 by razakars and the Jamaat-e-Islamiwere omitted since they became part of the ruling coalition (Nair 2010). Since 2009Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, hasremained in power. Historical revisionism is expected during this period but thereview could not identify reliable sources on the rewriting of history in Bangladeshitextbooks under the current political regime.

The preceding discussion has highlighted the links between political power andideologies and the revision of history textbooks often involving omission, falsifica-tion, and whitewashing of historical events and characters (Ghosh 2012; Joshi 2010;Lall 2008; Nair 2010). Each country has crafted a different history out of its sharedpast. The politicization of textbook revision in India is largely observed in the swingbetween a secular imagination of the nation to an exclusively Hindu nation. InPakistan, the thrust of the change is from a more pluralistic view of history andnation to a solidification of Islam with Pakistani identity. In Bangladesh, the shiftstend to be between secular versus religiously rooted national identity. More specif-ically, identity wars center on the contributions of civil versus the military to thecreation of Bangladesh and the role of internal “others” who opposed the nationalliberation movement.

National Identity and the History Curriculum 15

It is important to highlight that identity politics and narratives at central/federaland state/provincial levels do not overlap in either India (Banerjee and Stöber 2014)or Pakistan (Durrani and Halai 2020). A range of factors – the effects of partition atregional level, geographical distance from the center, contemporary internationalrelations and geopolitics, and incorporation of the state/province into central appa-ratuses – have an impact on how official national identity is received at the state/province level, and consequently states/provinces may reinforce discourses ofnational identity circulating at the center, for example, the Punjab and KhyberPakhtunkhwa provinces in Pakistan (Durrani and Halai 2020), or overwhelm iden-tities on display in central textbooks with subnational identities, for example, inMaharashtra and Tamil Nadu in India (Banerjee and Stöber 2014).

National Identity and the “Other”

This section looks at the ways the three nations of the Indian subcontinent use acommon history to imagine themselves as a seamlessly similar nation and the waysthat homogenous sameness relies on its constituent outside or the “other.” Theanalyses center on the symbols used in marking both external and internal “others”in each country.

In India, the NCERT history textbooks regard participation in the festival of othercommunities a symbol of good citizenship and a means of fostering Indian identity(Banerjee and Stöber 2014). The NCERT textbooks constitute Indian identity as aunifying force and “as a process of integration of multi-ethnic, multi-religious andmulti-lingual communities” (cited in Banerjee and Stöber 2014: 55) and similarlyremind students the “long tradition of religious pluralism [in India], ranging frompeaceful co-existence to actual inter-mixing or syncretism” (cited in Banerjee andStöber 2014: 56). The textbooks place the nation above religion and warn against thedangers of prioritizing the latter over the former

There is no harm of having so many religions. But to think of the interest of one’s religiouscommunity first and the nation afterwards, will definitely harm the country’s unity andintegrity. (cited in Banerjee and Stöber 2014: 55)

Likewise, communalism is constituted as the “other” of Indian identity and theclaims of a Hindu majority as threatening to Indian sovereignty: “our secular statewould be destroyed if all people belonging to different religions are not treatedequally” (cited in Banerjee and Stöber 2014: 58). Textbooks acknowledge theexistence of attitudes supporting the Hinduisation of Indian identity and condemnsuch attitudes as “obviously and terribly wrong” (cited in Banerjee and Stöber 2014:56).

Communalism in India is attributed to British colonial governance, whichresulted in the socioeconomic decline of Muslims and the British “divide and rule”policy. Furthermore Muslim and Hindu organizations including the Muslim Leagueand Hindu Mahasabha are blamed for “spreading communal hatred in their

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respective communities against each other” (cited in Banerjee and Stöber 2014: 56).While the NCERT textbooks revised under the NDA government see communalismas a danger to Indian unity, communalism is equated with terrorism and is related toMuslims and Sikhs, while the “Hindu majority is implicitly excluded from allega-tions related to communalism” (Banerjee and Stöber 2014: 56). In particular, theMuslims and the Muslim League, the political party at the forefront of the Pakistanmovement, are represented as internal “others” – communal in motives and practice:

The communal parties were not concerned with the freedom of the country but wanted to getconcessions for the upper classes of their communities. You have already read about theMuslim League which cut itself from the Congress in the 1920s and started pursuingcommunal demands... These tendencies hampered the nationalist movement. (cited inGhosh 2012: 136)

The revised NCERT textbooks under the BJP government sought to Hinduisenational identity by drawing on Hindu religion as a source of value education (Joshi2010). In order to inculcate pride in Hindu history, all references to facts or eventsthat might be seen as depicting Hindu identity in a negative light became the nullcurriculum (Joshi 2010). For example, references to beef consumption by Brahminsduring the Vedic age and critique of the caste system were erased from textbooks.Textbooks also downplay the contributions of Indian Muslims to contemporaryIndian society (Lall 2008). Textbooks constructed Muslims as the “other” portrayingthem negatively across time (Lall 2008). For example, while textbooks glorifiedHindu expansionist acts and praising Hindus for being “victorious, rising theirkingdom and trooping gloriously,”, Muslim expansionist acts were termed as “inva-sions and incursions,”, and Muslim rulers were depicted as intruders and foreign(Lall 2008: 19). For example, The Class XII textbook, “Modern India” authored byMittal (2003), depicts the antagonistic Muslim “other” as plunderers of temples andas oppressors of Hindus (cited in Lall 2008: 19).

The NCERT textbook series 1 (under the Congress Government) acknowledgecultural and historical links with its neighbor Pakistan, which is depicted simulta-neously as both the “closest” and “the most distant” and the “most important” andthe “most difficult” (Banerjee and Stöber 2016: 150). India’s relationship withPakistan is portrayed as “problematic” and “traumatic” but without clearlyexplaining the issues (Banerjee and Stöber 2016: 150). The NCERT textbooks series2 (under NDA Government) utilizes a more critical expression in the depiction ofPakistan, in close alignment with the NDA Government’s official position towardPakistan:

India has always sought peaceful, cordial and friendly relations with Pakistan. But Pakistanhas yet to respond to India’s friendly gestures and help establish healthy neighbourlyrelations. This is possible only when Pakistan stops cross-border terrorism, a kind ofundeclared war against India. (Banerjee and Stöber 2016: 151)

By contrast, the NCERT textbooks series 3 (under Congress Government) aredescribed as pedagogically and intellectually superior and tackle controversial issues

National Identity and the History Curriculum 17

without moralizing them (Banerjee and Stöber 2014). Nevertheless, they cover themodern period of history while “sanitising the narrative of nationalism to the extentthat the demand for Pakistan would lack all rationality and legitimacy in the eyes ofthe young student” (Kumar 2007: 214). The secular outlook portrayed in textbooksdoes not grant “a moral acceptance of the history and continued presence ofPakistan” (Kumar 2007: 214).

Pakistani national identity, as mentioned earlier, relies heavily on the “other” forforging unity across diverse ethnolinguistic groups who have differential access tosocioeconomic development and political power. Particularly, after Pakistan’s dis-memberment in 1971, official identity as represented in textbooks draws heavily onIslam to construct the Pakistani nation as seamlessly homogenous:

Pakistan is an ideological state. It is based on a specific philosophy of life. Its basis is thereligion of Islam . . . This is the basis that caused the movement of Pakistan. The ideology ofPakistan means ideology of Islam. (cited in Saigol 2014: 181)

The above identity narrative is repeated across Pakistan Studies textbooks regard-less of the authors and publishers, as one of the curriculum objectives is to “Promotean ideology of Pakistan, the Muslim struggle for independence and endeavours forestablishing a modern welfare state” (MoE 2006; cited in Durrani and Halai: 33).

The “struggles” referred to above are narrated with reference to an external“other” – Hindus/India. The antagonistic “other” is depicted to seek the annihilationof Pakistan predominantly militarily but also through its cultural, economic, andideological obliteration and its (Muslim) citizenry (Durrani and Halai 2018). Hindu/Indian politicians are described as predicting an imminent collapse of Pakistan tokeep alive their dream of the reunification of the Indian subcontinent:

The enemies started making hostile propaganda against Pakistan from the very first day ofher birth. They were spreading rumours that Pakistan was not economically viable and thatshe would soon collapse like a house of cards. (cited in Emerson 2018: 303)

Textbooks often do not engage in an in-depth discussion of the causes orimplications of the 1971 partition of Pakistan. Even when textbooks acknowledgeand offer some valid explanation for Bengali discontent with West Pakistan, theevent is portrayed as strongly associated with Hindu conspiracy:

When Pakistan was created to their [Indian leadership] entire displeasure, they startedworking on the agenda of dismembering it without delay. East Pakistan’s soil proved veryfertile for them for several reasons. Firstly, that the province had a very big Hindu popula-tion, which, unlike West Pakistan Hindus, had deep pro-India sympathies . . . Hindu teachersoutnumbered Muslim teachers. These institutions with the passage of time virtually turnedinto nurseries for breeding anti-Pakistan and secessionist intelligentsia. These intellectualsplayed a decisive role in dismembering Pakistan. East Pakistani masses, which felt deprivedand oppressed by the West Pakistan [sic] fell an easy prey to the secessionists. (cited inEmerson 2018: 303)

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The discursive construction of a lurking enemy ready to attack the territorial andideological basis of Pakistan normalizes xenophobia and the need for protectionfrom the (non-Muslim) aggressor and signifies the military and religion as keymarkers of Pakistani identity.

India planned to capture Lahore stealthily but the brave men of the Pakistan army destroyedthe Indian plan . . . India opened another battle front near Sialkot . . . but the courageous self-sacrificing Pakistani soldiers smashed the Indian tanks to pieces. (cited in Durrani 2008: 170)

The revised National Curriculum 2006 in Pakistan is seen by many commenta-tors, analysts, and stakeholders as vastly improved in terms of expunging “hate”messages; however, textbook revision is either lagging (Durrani et al. 2017), orrevised textbooks continue to define Pakistani “citizenship by juxtaposing national-ism and religion in a xenophobic manner,” articulating the ideal Pakistani citizen as“nationalistic, patriotic, religious, and unquestioning of the ways of the military”(Naseem 2014: 20).

The “othering” through which Pakistani identity is constructed in curriculumtexts has profound implications for the citizenship of non-Muslim Pakistanis, as wellas women. The gendered implications of Pakistani identity are extensively discussedin Emmerson and Kovinthan Levi (this section). Non-Muslims are often constructedas a separate type of citizen than Muslims with textbooks illustrating how they fit ornot into the Muslim/Pakistani state:

Muslims believe that people of the world are divided into two major communities or millatson the basis of faith. Followers of Islamic creed are a separate and distinct nation from therest of the mankind. (cited in Emerson 2018: 305)

The dominant association of Islam with Pakistani identity with Islam and consis-tently portraying non-Islamic as the “other” mark Pakistan’s non-Muslim citizens as“inauthentic” citizens resulting in their exclusion from national imaginary. This mayresult in students rejecting the Pakistani heritage deemed as un-Islamic. For example,Durrani’s (2008) ethnographic study observed that students had cut out images ofBuddha and some ancient coins with human imagery from their textbook. Theseimages appeared in a lesson on the ancient city Taxila. The curriculum objective wasto enable learners to appreciate their historical heritage but apparently, the lessonproduced the opposite effect.

National identity in Bangladesh, like India and Pakistan, is constructed throughdiscourses of “us” and the “them” (Ghosh 2014). The history of Bangladesh, asrepresented in the official curriculum, is a narrative of the innocence of heroic selves,i.e., the Bangali victims of oppression, and the wickedness of evil others, i.e., theBritish, Indians, Punjabis, and Pakistani oppressors/perpetrators.

History textbooks establish Bengali Muslims as forerunners of anticolonialmovement, drawing on the narration of the 1857 revolt, and therefore also theones who took the brunt of the consequences. The narrative is structured aroundthe binary of Bengali Muslim valor and the betrayal of specific Indian communities

National Identity and the History Curriculum 19

(Ghosh 2014). Within 3 years post-independence, the textbooks extended the nar-rative to attribute the failure of the revolt to the betrayal of the treacherous PunjabiCommunity. Importantly, the Punjabi community dominated post-independencePakistani politics, and they still control the Pakistani political landscape because oftheir population size and dominance of civil and military institutions.

The supporters of Britain helped them in various ways. The Bengali Hindus, Punjabis,Nepalis, Gorkhas, Nizams of Hyderabad . . . unequivocally helped the British . . . Bysupporting the British rulers, Punjabis became their favorite subjects. The influence ofPunjabis kept increasing in the military services and the grateful English governmentbegan irrigation and other welfare activities in Punjab. (cited in Ghosh 2014: 30)

Anti-Punjabi sentiments did not find a place in the textbooks revised in 1984. The1980s saw the political rise of Jamaat-e-Islami and its proximity to the political elitesin Bangladesh.

Another important historical event that reinforces the image of the BengaliMuslim heroic self against the oppressor Bengali Hindu elite is the 1905 Act ofthe Partition of Bengal. The textbook narratives establish the Hindu community inBengal as self-seeking and thriving on the exploitation of the Muslims. While theAct is presented as ushering in the emancipation of Bengali Muslims, the resistanceand mobilization of the Hindu Community against the Act is portrayed as the desireof Bengali Hindus to maintain their suppression of Bengali Muslims:

Kolkata-based educated Bengali [Hindu] intellectuals did not happily accept the prospect ofthe advancement of the underdeveloped and neglected Muslims. If the partition of Bengalwere enacted, the capital of the new province would be Dhaka. Dhaka would then beequivalent to Kolkata as a center for institutions such as the High Court, newspapers,periodicals, and trade and commerce. Such a situation was considered to be against theinterests of Kolkata-based businessmen, lawyers, and the educated class and [therefore] theeducated intellectuals opposed the Bengal Partition . . . On the other hand, the Bengalpartition triggered a desire for development among the neglected Muslims. (cited inGhosh 2014: 33)

The post-1947 historical narrative continues the portrayal of Bengali Muslim asseeking emancipation from the “other,” this time from Punjabi dominated WestPakistan. Textbooks claim that leaders of the Muslim League did not insist on theinclusion of Kolkata into East Bengal at partition fearing it would result in thepredominance of East Bengal over West Pakistan in the new state: “Yet the centralleaders of the League did not find it morally questionable to give away Kolkata toIndia free of cost in exchange for Lahore in West Pakistan” (cited in Ghosh 2012:37). Textbooks portray the promise of Pakistan ending “into a story of exploitationand false claims” alienating Bengalis “in their own country” (cited in Ghosh 2014:38). Likewise, the imposition of Urdu as the only official national language ofPakistan is depicted as an attempt by leaders of West Pakistan to impose an alienlanguage on the people of East Pakistan to extend their vested interests. In post-1947historical narrative, both victims and perpetrators are Muslim groups, suggestinghow Bengali Muslims could not base justice and democracy claims on religious

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identity. Hence, the partition of Pakistan occurred in 1971 in order to affirm justiceand peace for all East Bengalis in a new country called Bangladesh:

Within a year they [the leaders of West Pakistan] attacked the language and culture of thepeople of East Bengal . . . Bhasha andolan took East Bengal's nationalist movement a stepahead. A new feeling of nationalism was born. This feeling gradually weakened the basis ofPakistani nationalism and gave birth to Bengali nationalism. That is why February 21 of1952 was the first united expression of Bangladesh’s collective consciousness and a firstbold step toward the independence movement. (cited in Ghosh 2014: 38)

Thus, the curriculum history of Bangladesh is mainly a story of enmity andstruggle between Bengali Muslim proponents and non- or Hindu-Bengali perpetra-tors of justice. The curriculum does represent Bangladesh’s constitutional values ofdemocracy, such as equity and freedom for all religions in social, cultural, andpolitical spheres (Constitution 1972, 2014). For example, grade 6–10 social studiesand history (Bangladesh and Global Studies) curriculum represents Bangladesh as asecular society that accommodates Hinduism, Isnlam, and all other religions equi-tably (Bickmore et al. 2017). Nevertheless, religious values of tolerance and accom-modation of diverse viewpoints have never had a place in the selected history textsthat are used to teach who the Bangalis are and how they became independent fromtheir British, Indian, and Pakistani enemies (Ghosh 2014; Kaderi 2014). Thus,Bangladeshi curriculum representations of heroes and enemies of the Bangalisseem to potentially block diverse viewpoints about various historical conflicts,their stakeholders, causes, and democratic solutions to affirm justice (Kaderi2018). Therefore, official school policies in Bangladesh include potential challengesto the practice of democracy and equity, especially in relation to the narratives of pastconflicts that relate to national identity building.

Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter has explored the ways the three nations of the Indian subcontinent –India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – have used the school history curriculum toconstruct a cohesive national identity. Our analyses indicated that in all threecontexts history, education has been used to construct a dominant national ideologyin the pursuit of nation-building and the production of the “ideal” citizen. Educa-tional discourses in all three contexts permeate with messages of “struggling com-munity identities and national loyalties” (Ghosh 2012: 138). The history curriculumin the three contexts selectively uses shared historical events and reinterprets them inways to reify a national “us” against “them.” This essentialization of nationalidentity normalizes a singular identity, excluding particular citizen groups from therealm of “legitimate” citizenry and producing adversarial identities that fostersupport for cross-border conflict. It appears that the focus of history education,like elsewhere, has been to make students make sense of their past in ways toidentify with the political history of their country (Carretero 2017).

National Identity and the History Curriculum 21

The above generalizations, of course, mask contextual nuances and shifts acrosstime. In all contexts, the history curriculum and textbooks have undergone revisionsthat were prompted not solely by pedagogical or academic interests but also had astrong political agenda. Nevertheless, the literature indicates that the NCERT text-books series 3 (under the Congress government) in India were path breaking in termsof offering multiple perspectives on history and offering students to engage criticallywith textbook topics but even these textbooks made little difference to the dominantpedagogy of transmitting information as predefined truths, particularly within anexamination-oriented system.

Teachers play a substantial role in enacting the textbooks and socioculturalrepresentations of historical events. The histories shared in school textbooks – asinaccurate or politicized – construct the foundation of cross-cultural knowledgeamong the population and have an enormous influence on local perceptions ofother societies (Tripathi 2018). These impacts are more relevant for teachers whenimparting the histories and cultures of rival societies whose histories are stronglyinterlinked (Tripathi 2018). However, in India, Kumar (2007) contends that teachersrarely appreciate the political significance of school textbooks. In the context ofPakistan, Halai and Durrani (2018) observed that teachers largely support the statesponsored assimilationist approach through Islam in the promotion of social cohe-sion. Therefore, the development of students’ capacity for social critique and amultiperspectival understanding would require a redefinition in their teachers’“role from servants of a hegemonic power to public transformative intellectuals”(Batra 2006: 96). This suggests that the three countries need to reorient their teachereducation programs in ways that promote teacher agency for social cohesion andmitigating conflict through dialogic pedagogies and egalitarian pedagogical relation-ships. Furthermore, an exam-oriented system impinges on teachers’ ability to adopt acritical pedagogy and pushes them to focus on the reproduction of information ratherthan the creation of knowledge (Kumar 2001).

One might question whether history education has any impact on learners’identity formation, given the low learning outcomes reported across the threenational contexts in international and regional assessment reports (see Alcott andRose 2015; Ramachandran this section). In Pakistan, a small number of studies,which have involved students and teachers, consistently report a strong overlapbetween the curriculum texts and leaners’ identification at school level (Durrani2008; Emerson 2018), even in the diasporic context of Dubai (Qazi and Shah 2019).Furthermore, lasting impacts of identity formation were observed by Dunne et al.’s(2017) study involving the narratives of young people in higher education. Thesuccess of the curriculum in the production of desired citizen identities, whilewarrants further examination, indicates the overlap between school history andlocal history, and the reification of identity messages through other means and agentsincluding the media, local community, and the family.

Given the ongoing conflictual relations between the three countries, the educa-tional texts would serve the interests of their respective states better if they exposelearners to a pluralistic and diverse narrative about the past, creating “opportunitiesfor dialogue and rapprochement . . . encouraging pupils to question, critique and

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revisit exclusive and apparently irreconcilable group narratives and preconceivedtruths” (Bentrovato 2017: 53). Daftuar (2013, cited in Bentrovato 2017) reports theuse of such an approach in a project launched in India and Pakistan where historytextbooks offer different and oppositional narratives side by side, “covering keyevents in the tense history of Hindu–Muslim relations in this region” (Bentrovato2017: 53). Nevertheless, ethnographic studies of schools highlight that teachingcontested narratives in divided societies is a complex and challenging task. Further-more, the positive impact of such an approach on intergroup relations would benefitfrom empirical investigation.

The task of doing history the right way is no doubt daunting in the context ofIndia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh who are still struggling to emerge out of theshadows of partition and establish reconciliatory relations. However, the presentpractice is problematic and a barrier to peaceful coexistence. For example, byexclusively imagining Pakistan through the imaginary of the “Islamic world,”large episodes of Pakistan’s history become unintelligible which are linked totoday’s India. Likewise, without the normalization of boundaries, textbooks inIndia would continue to depict the existence of Pakistan as an amputation of anorganic entity, ignoring extended historical periods when a plurality of states existedwithin the Indian subcontinent (Joshi 2010). On a more optimistic note, since thenation is constructed largely in imagination despite having a material form, alterna-tive imaginaries are possible.

Cross-References

▶Knowledge and Curriculum Landscapes in South Asia: An Introduction▶Global Citizenship Education▶Colonial Education and the Modern Subject

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