From the time when I was a senior school student till the present I have felt an acute lacuna in the context of good quality textbooks authored by Indian scholars and academics. During the decade of the 1970s, the NCERT had done an admirable job in producing some very well written school textbooks in several disciplines. In particular, the series on the life sciences under the general editorship of the late Panchanan Maheshwari truly stood out. He was one of our most distinguished of scientists and he had taken the pains to assemble a team of highly regarded life scientists to produce the textbooks on botany and zoology. More importantly, Professor Maheshwari had himself authored several chapters in those books and it was evident to even a schoolboy like me that the books carried a great deal of value. Unfortunately, almost no one in my high school experience attached much value to those books and this included almost all my teachers. Instead, we were compelled to obtain very bulky volumes authored by nondescript individuals and we were told that these books were the ones that would help us do well in school leaving examinations as well as for entering colleges offering medical and related disciplines of study. In hindsight, compelling students to rely on those shoddy textbooks and such practices have caused much harm to the cause of education in India. Lest we gain the impression that this was affecting only high school education we need to think again. Similarly, let us not think that this is not relevant in today’s times; the problem continues to persist.
Elaborating on what I have said above, I shall cite specific disciplines to bolster my point and to then hopefully suggest how the situation could be remedied. If we were to examine the discipline of mathematics or of economics as taught in most Indian institutions at the level of the first degree, we shall discover two things, and both shall depend on the quality of the institution that we choose to put under the lens. If we look at the books—in the aforementioned disciplines—prescribed at a comparatively good university, we are most likely to find a preponderance of good quality textbooks authored mostly by academics from western nations and particularly from the US. At the same time, we shall find that at these so called ‘better universities’ there will be an acute absence of books authored by Indians. On the other hand, if we turn our spotlight on the not-so-well regarded institutions, we shall find a greater presence of books that bear the names of Indian authors and are in use in these universities and colleges. The unfortunate part of this story is that most of these books—that have been authored indigenously—are of a very abysmal quality. The situation becomes extremely worrying—even alarming—when we look at textbooks in the regional languages.
Why do I say so categorically that the situation is alarming? After all, what is wrong in using high quality books authored by scholars from foreign lands. In principle, I have no quarrel in using a good textbook so long as it bears value. However, I recall from my time as a vice chancellor, that many of the books on economics dealt with problems and themes that were drawn entirely from a western context or situation, especially when dealing with microeconomics, but also in general. In fact, I have found that on quantitative issues these books would naturally mention items and currencies that a bright student from a not-so-privileged background in India would not easily relate with his daily experiences. However, my bigger worry has been that for a country that claims as a part of its hoary heritage such great examples of scholarly writing as Kautilya’s Arthashastra to Aryabhata’s Aryabhatiya, why do we pale in comparison with what we offer to our youth today? The remedy is simple; the University Grants Commission should leverage the National Education Policy to inculcate good scholarship and communication skills in our students who shall then in time be adept at communicating their scholarship.