Learning can be boring. There is, therefore, or so goes the specious theory, no harm done in making textbooks all fun and play. Has this line of thinking been adopted by the minders of Karnataka’s education system? What else can explain the inclusion of a passage in a textbook meant for Class VIII students that said V.D. Savarkar, while incarcerated, would hitch a ride on bulbul birds and fly out to visit the motherland. *Of course, history has been reduced to a play thing by the right-wing that is desperate to transform Savarkar into a national idealogue. This transformation, alas, is not possible without such flights of fancy. Savarkar’s critics have repeatedly pointed out the venal, divisive ideology that he was a proponent of. There is that other thing about him entreating the British authorities with mercy petitions even as his compatriots suffered without supplication. These facts — history’s serrated edges — can only be softened with the help of the fanciful. Perhaps that is the reason the director of the Karnataka Textbook Society defended, quite touchingly, the inclusion of the chapter, saying that it is an instance of “poetic imagination”.

All of this would have been quite funny had it not been for a noticeable transgression: an entire generation of learners is being fed an exalted image of a man as a result of the ideological prerogatives of the ruling regime. The consequences of this drip-feed can be dangerous for a pluralistic republic: Savarkar, after all, endorsed the majoritarian ethic and his influence on the assassin of the Mahatma — a man who lived and died for interfaith harmony — was undeniable. This is yet another instance of not just the saffronisation of education but also the tainting of history by myth. No less than the prime minister has been on record eulogising ancient India for accomplishing modern medical marvels such as plastic surgery. The right-wing’s wilful distortion of facts is consistent with the post-truth phenomenon. By turning history into something malleable — like the proverbial plasticine — right-wing regimes around the world are hoping to whitewash their failings in the past and in the present. The consumption of this troublesome embellishment often begins in education systems so that they produce passive, as opposed to questioning, minds that cannot spot the mischief. Some forms of poetic imagination must be resisted.