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UNIT 3 Bias in history textbook

UNIT 3: LEARNING RESOURCES

a) DETECTING AND DEALING WITH BIAS IN HISTORY & POLITICAL SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS

-Dr. Pallavi Talekar

BIAS

Bias is an inclination of temperament or outlook to present or hold a partial perspective and a refusal to even consider the possible merits of alternative points of view.

Merriam Webster: A tendency to believe that some people, ides etc. are better than others that usually result in treating some people unfairly.

Oxford dictionary: - Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair

People may be biased toward an individual, a race, a religion, a social class, or a political party. Biased means one-sided, lacking a neutral viewpoint, not having an open mind. Bias can come in many forms and is often considered to be synonymous with prejudice. No country is free from biases.

The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, as their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is the one commonly used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment. The biases are seen in behaviour, writings and can easily creep into textbooks. All subjects could carry biased statements; however, the history textbook is generally an easy target for bias to enter. And hence as a teacher of history one needs to be extra sensitive to detect bias in the textbook.

BIAS IN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

There are different types of biases: Gender bias, Cultural bias, Religious bias, Racial bias, Caste bias , Class bias, Political bias. Many countries and states have guidelines against bias in education. Eg. In 1980, the council on Interracial Books for Children published the book Guidelines for selecting Bias- Free Textbooks and storybooks.

EXAMPLES OF BIASES FROM VARIOUS BOOKS

1] The denial of the holocaust or underplaying of the (Hitler’s war against Jews) is always seen in various history accounts.

2] The downplay of African civilization by white writers has led sometimes led us to believe that they haven’t really contributed to mankind’s development.

3] Krishna Kumar’s book Prejudice and Pride is an analysis of textbooks in India and Pakistan. Pakistani books project Mahatma Gandhi as a Hindu leader, do not mention Mangal Pandey or Rani Jhansi in the 1857 revolt, ignore the many areas of fruitful Hindu-Muslim collaboration in the freedom struggle and totally undermine the importance of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

4] In India, we do not give enough attention to how the Muslim League's appeal grew and the many omissions and commissions of Congress leaders that helped to spread the two-nation theory that led to Partition.

5] Extreme bias against Israel has been found in Arab textbooks, and classroom maps are often altered to replace the label "Israel" with "Palestine". Their writings frequently refer to Israel as "the small Satan" and America as "the great Satan." Arab schools almost universally teach Holocaust denial; Israelis are often labelled as Nazis, and Zionism is treated as comparable to Nazism.

6] History in the New NCERT Textbooks: A Report and an Index of Errors by Irfan Habib, Suvira Jaiswal, and Aditya Mukherjee; Indian History Congress, Kolkata, 2003; shows the numerous prejudices history books carry. They have quoted an example from a social studies textbook for the ninth-grade- "Problems of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes," the authors say: "Of course, their ignorance, illiteracy and blind faith are to be blamed for lack of progress because they fail to realize the importance of education in life."

7] Joy Hakim’s books constitute A History of US, purports to deal with American history the California State Board of Education has adopted them for use in California's public schools.

On page 10 of Making Thirteen Colonies, Hakim starts a long passage in which she purports to describe some societies of ancient and medieval Europe. Here is how she introduces ancient Athens:

In Athens, which was a powerful city-state, the Greeks tried democracy. They let the people (except for women and slaves) vote and rule themselves. Since most men didn't have time to vote on everything, they elected leaders to decide some things for them. That made their form of government a republic. A republic is a place where people elect representatives who govern them according to law.

COMMENT: The Athenian political system was not a republican system, because the Athenians did not elect representatives. They used a kind of direct democracy which had these distinctive features: Political offices could be held by any citizen, and many office-holders were chosen by lot, rather than election. Our word republic comes not from classical Greek but from classical Latin, the language of the ancient Romans: The Romans used the term res publica (or respublica) to mean the form of government that they maintained before the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. Hakim's use of republic to describe the government of classical Athens is historically wrong and etymologically invalid.

8]Joy Hakim’s books constitute A History of US, purports to deal with American history the California State Board of Education has adopted them for use in California's public schools.

page 14 Hakim now purports to tell something about European colonies in the New World by referring to other polities:

There were no democracies in Europe. There were kings and emperors. The republics of Greece and Rome were a distant memory. But in America there were republics -- Indian republics. Right away, some of the newcomers [to the New World] were impressed with the free life the Indians led. They thought about that free life and added it to their idea pool.

COMMENT: Hakim's account is wrong, partly because she continues to confuse words (democracy and republic) and partly because she doesn't know the relevant history. It is false to claim that, at the time when European colonies were evolving in the New World, Europe was ruled entirely by kings and emperors. Venice and Genoa were republics in Renaissance times, and the so-called Dutch Republic -- the United Provinces of the Netherlands, established in the late 16th century -- was studied by Montesquieu and by the framers of our Constitution. The framers classified both Venice and the United Provinces of the Netherlands as republics, and they discussed each republic's merits and drawbacks as a model for the United States.

9] Sixth Grade California Textbooks

Page 87: “The monkey king Hanuman loved Rama so much that it is said that he is present every time the Ramayana is told. So look around—see any monkeys?”

COMMENT: Hanuman is not the monkey ‘king’. The king was Sugriva. Students in class might use such an exercise to tease or ridicule their Hindu class mates and call them monkeys. The text has many more such frivolous statements.

WAYS TO DETECT THE BIASES FROM THE TEXTBOOK

An important skill of critical reading is the ability to detect an author's bias and prejudice. There are four ways to detect an author's possible bias and prejudice.:

1] INFLAMMATORY LANGUAGE

The author uses inflammatory language in the most extreme cases, racial epithets, slurs, etc.Inflammatory language can include single words, phrases, names, or various discourse strategies. Whereas a textbook would be non-inflammatory because it’s factual and dry nature wouldn't offend. But inflammatory language is used in History textbooks sometimes. Inflammatory language often intentionally provokes a reaction from the reader by use of strong rhetoric or controversial opinions. It can be used as a euphemism for hate speech, but this isn't necessarily so.

Eg.

  • In "recent editions of Social Studies books of Gujarat Board, a close association is made between terrorism and Muslim identity". In history textbooks, Muslims are first identified as "outsiders", adds the abstract. Aurangzeb, for instance, is consistently depicted as a Muslim ruler who was intolerant of other faiths.
  • The textbooks in Karnataka and some other States containing elements of “saffronisation” and valorisation of specific regional heroes, ethnic identities and faith-based communities in a manner that do not do justice to or even denigrate others.

2] MAKING CLAIMS TO ELEVATE THE DEMEAN CLASS/ EVENT / PERSONALITY:

Sometimes content in the history textbook over glorify a class, event, personality. It exaggerate the role of a particular leader, or event to show how important it is in the history. The author consistently makes claims whose larger purpose is to elevate (or demean) one social, ethnic, national, religious, or gender group as compared to another, or all others.

Eg. Manusmriti

3] PRESENTING PARTIAL VIEWS FOR EVIDENCES

The author consciously presents evidence that serves to tell only one side of an event or issue, purposefully withholding or ignoring information that may shed the opposing view in a more positive light. Curriculum may perpetuate bias by presenting only one interpretation of an issue, situation, or group of people. Such accounts simplify and distort complex issues by omitting different perspectives.

Eg.

  • Joy Hakim’s books constitute A History of US, purports to deal with American history the California State Board of Education has adopted them for use in California's public schools.

page 14 Hakim now purports to tell something about European colonies in the New World by referring to other polities:

There were no democracies in Europe. There were kings and emperors. The republics of Greece and Rome were a distant memory. But in America there were republics -- Indian republics. Right away, some of the newcomers [to the New World] were impressed with the free life the Indians led. They thought about that free life and added it to their idea pool.

COMMENT: Hakim's account is wrong, partly because she continues to confuse words (democracy and republic) and partly because she doesn't know the relevant history. It is false to claim that, at the time when European colonies were evolving in the New World, Europe was ruled entirely by kings and emperors. Venice and Genoa were republics in Renaissance times, and the so-called Dutch Republic -- the United Provinces of the Netherlands, established in the late 16th century -- was studied by Montesquieu and by the framers of our Constitution. The framers classified both Venice and the United Provinces of the Netherlands as republics, and they discussed each republic's merits and drawbacks as a model for the United States.

  • The downplay of African civilization by white writers has led sometimes led us to believe that they haven’t really contributed to mankind’s development.

4] FALSIFYING EVIDENCES:

The author manufactures, falsifies and/or dishonestly cites evidence in order to present his or her case in a more positive light. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document. This include presenting known forged documents as genuine; inventing ingenious, but implausible, reasons for distrusting genuine documents; attributing his or her own onclusions to books and sources reporting the opposite; manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view; and deliberately mis-translating texts. The term Falsification of history redirects to the article Historical revisionism (negationism).

Many researchers have noted the tendency of instructional materials to gloss over unpleasant facts and events in our history. By ignoring prejudice, racism, discrimination, exploitation, oppression, sexism, and inter-group conflict, we deny students the information they need to recognize, understand, and perhaps someday conquer societal problems.

Eg.

  • In the Sixth Grade California Textbook Page 81: “The Dasa had, in reality lived in the region for hundreds of years. Their ancestors in the Indus Valley were the Harappans who had named the rivers and mountains, and had built the cities that now lay abandoned.”

COMMENT: There are no surviving names of rivers and mountains that were given by these imagined Dasas. The statement is a figment of imagination. Thus, like many other textbooks, this one also first casts a doubt on the Aryan invasion theory (AIT) but nevertheless proceeds to construct Indian past and religion on the basis of this baseless theory.

  • In the second textbook named ‘Ancient Civilization’, published by Holt. On page 154 we read: “However, Hinduism also taught that women were inferior to men. As a result, Hindu women were not allowed to read the Vedas or other sacred texts”.

COMMENT: No such remarks are made for any other culture or religion in the textbooks and Hinduism is unfairly singled out and judged per modern standards, using ideals that have not been realized even in contemporary societies. It is questionable that women could not read the Vedas in the entire period of ancient India that this textbook covers. More than 20 sages of the Rigveda alone are women, the entire 14th book of Atharvaveda is attributed to a woman sage. Even the most misogynist of Hindu lawgivers permitted women to read Puranas, Mahabharata and many other Hindu texts.

OVERCOMING SOCIAL BIASES

  • Review school textbooks and identify each of these forms. Then think of the ways to remove the bias and create more equitable textbooks.
  • Understand the concept of bias, prejudice and stereotypes
  • Read various texts to understand and interpret historical accounts
  • Learn simple ways to detect bias- inflammatory language, one sided view, falsified view, making larger claims.
  • Inform students about the bias manners
  • Be careful in use of language while discussing sensitive issues.

DMU Timestamp: March 12, 2020 00:41





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