The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

1. Whether we see the elimination of Cartoons from textbooks as involving issues of freedom of expression would depend on how we view the status of images in the text. Surely different genres of texts connote different forms of creativity. Contrary to what Bilgrami thinks, images in most of these NCERT textbooks are not merely ‘illustrations' but are constitutive of the text, shaping the meaning of what is being said....

The new curriculum sought to overcome the visual baggage of old textbooks. Today, India debates whether or not Cartoons should be included in school textbooks. Such debates are welcome to improve our understanding of school education in general, and textbooks in particular. But before the review committee throws all Cartoons out of the school tub, it would help to understand a few facets of textbook preparation, especially the selection of visuals. Locating...

Political parties across the spectrum get into a tangle over an innocuous cartoon in a school textbook THE textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are in the news again. This time, it is not history but political science textbooks that managed to get almost all Members of Parliament on their feet on an emotive issue and for reasons that defied logic. One day before the 60th...

The thrust of Prabhat Patnaik's argument (“Parliament's say extends to the classroom,” The Hindu , May 22, 2012) is clear. It is to declare illegitimate the arguments against government action on the recent textbook controversy. What is this hullabaloo about, Patnaik seems to be saying: what is under threat is not the status of critical pedagogy in the textbooks but the jurisdiction of the Parliament. The larger argument within Patnaik's polemic...