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Abstract
This article presents and analyses the voices and responses of the research participants about the impact of exclusionary formal and informal education policies imposed on the Santal community in Palashpur, Bangladesh (Palashpur is a pseudonym for the site of my research; it is also a metaphor for contested space where the colonial power and politics of the nation state exert domination and subordination). These policies are implemented through a state-led, centralised, monolingual and exclusionary curriculum in local primary and secondary schools, schools run by the churches, and schools supported by nongovernmental organisations. The education policies in Bangladesh bear the legacy of the combined forces of cultural homogenisation and social exclusion rooted in the colonial learning structure and its objectives. Embedded in these policies are elements of the civilising mission, an ultra-religious assimilative but exclusionary nationalistic agenda, and Western values of modernity and development. In this rural context, these alien ideologies and practices in education are actively engaged in eliminating local institutions, the knowledge system of indigenous peoples, the texture of their lives, their joy of living, their spirituality and their sense of being. This article reveals how, imposed from above, education policy and practices have dispersed an indigenous community to negotiate a life that goes against the interests of the community itself and its members.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Willinsky, Learning to Divide the World, 89.
2 Dei, “Local Knowledge and Educational Reforms,” 37–71.
3 Ray, Das and Basu, To Be with Santals.
4 Adivasi or adivashi: Adivasis are the original peoples of the land. This is a Bengali/Hindi term for Indigenous peoples in the Subcontinent. In the Bangladeshi context, Adivasis are not officially recognised as Adivasis. They are called outsiders or tribal.
5 Kolarian is one of the three non-Aryan races in the Indian Subcontinent. The indigenous non-Aryan races of India are divided into three classes: Tibeto-Burmese, Kolarian and Dravidian.
6 As cited in Stone, The Essential Max Muller, Max Muller (1823–1900) was the famed German-born Oxford professor of comparative philology and Vedic studies. He was a prolific writer and a popular lecturer. Through his published works, the English public and the world were first introduced to the wisdom of ancient India.
7 Hembrom, The Santals.
8 Mahapatra, Modernization and Ritual.
9 T. Roy, Santal Bidroher Rosenamcha.
10 Dei, Rethinking of the Indigenous Knowledge; and hooks, Talking Back.
11 Barua, “Western Education and Modernization”; Barua, “Colonial Education and Rural Buddhist Communities.”
12 Viswanathan, Mask of Conquest.
13 Hussain, “Bangladesh Socioeconomic”; and Barua, “Western Education,” 60.
14 Battiste, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy, 15.
15 Dei, “Local Knowledge and Educational Reforms in Ghana,” 9.
16 Ball, Foucault and Education.
17 Barua, “Colonialism, Education, and Rural Buddhist Communities.”
18 Viswanathan, Mask of Conquest, 23.
19 Weir, History’s Worst Decisions, 80.
20 Jahan, “Genocide in Bangladesh.”
21 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 10.
22 Barua, “Colonialism, Education, and Rural Buddhist Communities.”
23 Chowdhury, cited in ibid.
24 Madrashas are Islamic religious schools.
25 Ray, Das, and Basu, To Be with Santals.
26 Miller, Holistic Curriculum.
27 Babu is a notion of identity in which an individual is white on the inside and brown on the outside.
28 Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom.
29 Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
30 Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
31 Willinsky, Learning to Divide the World, 252.
32 Nandy, Intimate Enemy: Colonization of the Mind, 170.
33 Dei, Hall, and Rosenberg; Freire; Shiva, cited in Barua, “Western Education and Modernization.”
34 Nandy, Intimate Enemy: Colonization of the Mind, 170.
35 Tuhiwai-Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies. Research and Indigenous Peoples, 20.
36 Gaventa, Toward a Knowledge Democracy, 121–2, cited in Barua, “Colonialism, Education, and Rural Buddhist Communities,” 113.
37 Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods.
38 Debnath, “Living on the Edge.”
39 Interview with the author, November 2005.
40 Interview with the author, November 2005.
41 Interview with the author, December, 2005.
42 Interview with author, December, 2005 (BARAC schools are run by an NGO known as BRAC).
43 Sarker and Davey, “Exclusion of Indigenous Children from Primary Education.”
44 Battiste and Henderson, Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, 50.
45 Interview with the author, November 2005.
46 Nachol Bidroha (Nachol rebellion) is popularly known as the Tebhaga movement, or more precisely a peasant movement in which the tenants demanded three-fourths of produce against the Zamindars’ favoured fity–fifty. The Santals supported this movement through active participation.
47 A. Roy, “Comrade Illa Mitra: A Tribute.”
48 Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom.
49 Berry, 1990, cited in Barua, “Colonialism, Education, and Rural Buddhist Communities,” 97.
50 Wane, “Is Decolonization Possible?,” 87.
51 Interview with the author, 2005.
52 Tagore, “Shikhya (Education),” 569–70.
53 Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, 61.
54 Cummins, “Empowering Minority Students.”
55 Dei et al., Drop out or Push out, 20.
56 Thiongo, Decolonizing the Mind.
57 PART IV, Article 15, United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
58 Althusser, cited in Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education and Beyond.”
59 Gramsci, cited in Giroux, Ideology, Culture and the Process of Schooling, 20.
60 Giroux, cited in Dardar, Culture and Power in the Classroom, 33.
61 Interview with the author, December 2005.
62 Interview with the author, November 2005.
63 PART IV, Article 15, United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
64 Interview with the author, December 2005.
65 Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
66 Gandhi, cited in Dhawan, Philosophy of Education, 147.
67 Mahapatra, Modernization and Ritual, 2.
68 Interview with the author, December 2005.
69 Interview with the author, December 2005.
70 Dei, Towards a Politics of Resistance, 1–23.
71 Corson, “Community Based Education for Indigenous Peoples.”
72 Willinsky, Learning to Divide the World.
73 Miller, Holistic Curriculum, 155.
74 Freire and Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word.
75 Cummins, Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment, 9.
76 Mohanty, “Power, Representation, and Feminist Critique.”
77 Brandt, cited in Graveline, Circle Works: Transforming Eurocentric Consciousness, 11.
78 Dei et al., Drop out or Push out: The Dynamics of Black Students’ Disengagement from School, 20.
79 Thiongo, Decolonizing the Mind, 9.
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Mrinal Debnath
Dr Mrinal Debnath is a Toronto, Canada-based freelance writer and researcher who completed his Doctor of Education degree from OISE/University of Toronto. He is currently working as a literacy instructor for the Continuing Education Department, TCDSB, Toronto, and as a contract faculty member at YUELI, York University, Toronto, and at Centennial College, Toronto.