Back from Chicago...and a thesis proposal

Yup, that's right. I'm back (again!). The Chicago trip was great and I loved the city, especially its skyline. I was a delegate at the 43rd International Achievement Summit, and I met a whole range of people. I will blog a bit about the political aspects of the trip at some point, including a bit about this fascinating debate between Wes Clark, Shimon Peres and the President of Latvia, and later Bill Clinton.

Back to the world of Indian politics. I'd promised at some earlier point in time to write a bit about my thesis proposal. I will admit at the outset, that the proposal I sent Harvard was rubbish and I'm glad they didn't think so. But having thought a bit about my proposal, this is what I'd like to work on: Textbooks in South Asia have for a while been a perennial source of controversy particularly in India and Pakistan. Take a look at this article if you want a cogent summary of what's been happening. I'd ideally like to look at the NDA government's 'tampering' with textbooks and compare it with similar developments in Pakistan in Zia's time. My Pakistani friends tell me that textbooks in Pakistan remain a source of huge controversy and it would be interesting to compare how history textbooks seek to inculcate a sense of nation and nationality as well as deal with issues as ethnic minorities, divisive movements, and the question of 'identity' in modern South Asia. Ideally, if I can gather enough data, I'd like to expand my study to cover not just India and Pakistan, but Bangladesh as well (partly because I speak, read and write the language..and hence won't be at a disadvantage).

There's been some work done on this, particularly by Yvette Roser, and I hope someday to be able to meet her. She suffered a serious accident in 2003, but it's worrying that she has links to the VHP. In fact, I've just realised that she's worked on exactly what I want to work on, which might mean that I might have to modify at least parts of my thesis proposal. Considering that she's worked on exactly the same three countries that I want to work on, I would need to find something pretty novel to say to avoid duplicating her work. One of my other ideas was to examine at greater length the use of textbooks to reconstruct particular versions of history elsewhere in the world. And the two examples that come to mind are South Africa and the Balkans. If anyone has any information on this, or could suggest readings, I'd be very glad.

Here's another interesting article on the kinds of 'mistakes' that abound in Pakistani textbooks. If you read that article, you'll find a number of pointers that I hope to pick up on when looking at the issue of textbooks. In particular, when dealing with the question of 'identities', I will look at the Hindu/Muslim identity in both India and Pakistan, and hopefully Bangladesh as well.

This incidentally is an excellent article by Rosser. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll find a whole series of links to more articles on the history curricula in Pakistan.

The man who's done a lot of work on the subject, is the father of a close friend, Krishna Kumar. His book Prejudice and Pride looks at how modern Indian/Pakistani history leading up to Partition is presented in the history textbooks of both countries. As Shahid Amin, aptly puts it, in this review, history textbooks become morality tales for children that try to create a national pantheon of heroes and myths.

On a more worrying note, I've been reading up about Yvette Rosser and I have to say I find some aspects of what there is on the net disturbing. I don't want to pass any judgement before I meet her and talk to her, but both this and this disturbs me. Actually I'd really like to read her thesis, because having read this much about her I've now come to the conclusion that I don't think we'll say very similar stuff in our theses!!