Images of Men and Women in Indian Textbooks

Abstract

In 1965, the Government of India proposed to create a curriculum conducive to sex-role equality. Recognizing the fundamental equality between men and women, it envisioned an educational system that would pave the way for a new society where individuals would not be forced to follow sex-based patterns of behavior: . . it is unscientific to divide tasks and subjects on the basis of sex and to regard some of them as 'masculine' and others as 'feminine.' Similarly, the fact that the so-called psychological differences between the two sexes arises, not out of sex but out of social conditioning, will have to be widely publicized and people will have to be made to realize that stereo-types of 'masculine' and 'feminine' personalities do more harm than good.' This commitment was reiterated a decade later in a proposed amendment to the Indian Constitution which, among other fundamental duties, called upon Indian citizens to ... remove any practice derogatory to the dignity of women.2 The Indian government has had a very important means for implementing this educational policy since 1955, when the preparation and approval of Indian textbooks became a highly centralized and mostly state-controlled enterprise. Ever since 1953, when the Secondary Education Commission found serious flaws in textbooks published by private concerns, the government has steadily increased its direction of the textbook industry. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Board of School Textbooks developed guidelines for the states, and by the end of 1971, all states had set up appropriate agencies to produce the texts.3 As a result, the Indian educational policymakers today enjoy almost complete control over the content and format of Indian school textbooks.