It is getting predictable — the intellectual, ethical and professional surrender of various institutions to the agenda of the party in power at the Centre. The University Grants Commission has produced a draft syllabus for the undergraduate history course. Echoing the ruling regime’s drive for control in all spheres, the UGC has, for the first time, graduated from issuing general guidelines to producing a paper-by-paper course. The changes in the history syllabus of Delhi University cause little surprise. Mythological concepts and ancient Indian texts with a religious slant — non-religious texts do not make the cut — have been given primacy over the study of pre-historic times and the early historic period. Together with these has been included the ‘idea of Bharat’ with one topic suggesting that it is ‘eternal’. What does fantasizing have to do with history? That this should be matched with a sidelining of lessons on the Mughal period — apparently caused by Babar’s ‘invasion’, a term rejected hitherto by the university — is hardly unexpected. Hindu and Muslim societies are to be studied under separate heads, suggesting division, not interaction, in the medieval period. These changes are enough to indicate that history teaching is to be turned on its head; the rest, such as using V.D. Savarkar’s label for the 1857 uprising while ignoring other rebellions, pretending there was no Dalit politics till 1950 or no partition of Bengal in 1905 and no resistance to it, or replacing books such as Irfan Habib’s with books by allegedly ‘pro-sangh’ writers, are just dangerous details.

The intention is to disseminate ignorance. This is not the ignorance of not knowing, but that of belief in something false or non-existent. An example is the draft syllabus’s highly original identification of an Indus-Saraswati civilization when no one knows if the ancient Saraswati river existed. But juggling priorities and topics, or introducing unhistorical ideas, is not meant just to distort understanding. Fantasy replacing facts and disguised propaganda replacing historical accounts are evidence of a far-sighted goal. The UGC seems desirous of compelling students to dismantle their intellectual equipment which they will strengthen with study, analysis, independent reflection and research. The programme is to create brainlessness. Without that, it will not be possible to establish one dominant ideology and undisputed political control. Students are filling up the jails.