New Delhi: The revised NCERT class 11 political science textbook says that vote bank politics is associated with ‘minority appeasement’, and also defines the term as political parties disregarding “the principles of equality of all citizens and give priority to the interests of a minority group”.
The section about vote bank politics and minority appeasement is included in a chapter on secularism, which also has a section on ‘criticism of Indian secularism,’ reported The Indian Express.
While the section on vote bank politics was included in the textbook for the previous session of 2023-24 as well, the word minority appeasement has been included for the first time in the 2024-25 version.
Both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 versions of the textbook then the same questions: “But what if the welfare of the group in question is sought at the cost of the welfare and rights of other groups? What if the interests of the majority are undermined by these secular politicians? Then a new injustice is born.”
However, the answer varies in the two versions.
The 2023-24 version reads: “But can you think of such examples? Not one or two but a whole lot of them such that you can claim that the whole system is skewed in favour of minorities? If you think hard, you might find that there is little evidence that this has happened in India. In short, there is nothing wrong with vote bank politics as such, but only with a form of vote bank politics that generates injustice. The mere fact that secular parties utilise vote banks is not troublesome. All parties do so in relation to some social group.”
In the latest version, the revised paragraph explicitly states that vote bank politics in India is associated with minority appeasement.
The revised version reads: “Can you think of such examples? In theory, there may not be anything wrong with vote bank politics but only when vote bank politics leads to the mobilisation of a social group to vote en masse for a particular candidate or political party during elections, this distorts electoral politics. Here, the important feature is that the whole group works as a single monolithic unit during voting. Despite the diversity within the unit, the party or leader pursuing such vote bank politics tries to artificially construct a belief that the interest of the group is one. In effect, by doing this, the political parties’ priorities short- term electoral gains over the long- term development and governance needs of society,” reported The Indian Express.
“In India it has been observed that political parties neglecting substantive issues have often focused on emotive issues for electoral gains, neglecting genuine problems faced by the community. Competitive vote bank politics has the potential to exacerbate social division by portraying different groups as rivals vying for limited resources. In India, the vote bank politics is also associated with minority appeasement. This means that the political parties disregard the principles of equality of all citizens and give priority to the interests of a minority group. Ironically, this has led to further alienation and marginalization of the minority group. As vote bank politics fails to acknowledge diversity within the minority group taking up issues of social reform within these groups has also proved difficult,” says the textbook.
According to the NCERT, the reason behind the revision is that the section in the older version “only intends to justify vote bank politics”, and that the revision makes the section a “relevant criticism of Indian secularism,” The Indian Express reported.
Meanwhile, reacting to accusations of saffronisation of the school curriculum, NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said that references to incidents such as the Gujarat riots and Babri mosque demolition were modified in school textbooks to avoid creating ‘violent and depressed citizens,’ reported The Times if India.
