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failed to respond to popular issues. But it is equally dangerous to say that one should join them in order to inuence or radicalise their participants, for those are collective, not individual, processes, and these protests organisational process will not permit that. Celebration of these protests, merely because they are

protests, is as absurd as celebrating the Ayodhya movement because it was antigovernment. Hence, for those who seek to expand popular struggle, it would appear that the only alternative is to utilise the atmosphere that these mobilisations create while constantly and explicitly distancing ones organisations from the

demands and actions of the media-driven main protests. It is not an easy path to walk, but there seems no other.
Reference
Rajagopal, Arvind (2001): Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

The NET Paradox

Amar Farooqui

This is a close scrutiny of the history question papers for the National Eligibility Test conducted by the University Grants Commission (June 2013) which demonstrates the manner in which the UGC is actually damaging the discipline through the rather unimaginative format it has chosen for assessing the potential of candidates.

f the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) is any guide, then insofar as history is concerned, the professional standards required of aspiring university teachers are not too demanding. The paradox is that some of the brightest students, many of them engaged in cutting-edge research, nd it extremely difcult to cross this hurdle. On the other hand, NET-qualied candidates appearing for interviews for teaching positions in colleges often have difculty in naming even a single decent book pertaining to the subject. Since these statements might appear to be assertions based on subjective impressions or anecdotal evidence, a close scrutiny of the history question papers for the recently held NET (June 2013) examination would demonstrate the manner in which the UGC is actually damaging the discipline through the rather unimaginative format it has chosen for assessing the potential of candidates. Questions on Modern History The following discussion pertains to Paper II (History) and Paper III (History). Paper II has 50 objective-type questions and Paper III has 75 objective-type questions. I shall conne my observations to questions on modern Indian history, accounting for about one-third of the questions, since that is an area I am more familiar with. Typographical errors have been ignored. One assumes that Trevelyan being spelt as Travelyan is not a typographical error as the same spelling occurs twice (III; Q 1, Q 50), and that malguzari being written as malgujar
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Amar Farooqui (amarfarooqui@hotmail.com) is with the Department of History, University of Delhi.

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(III; Q 73) or Al Hilal spelt in Hindi as Al Hll (III; Q 62) is merely due to carelessness about pronunciation. More serious are the grammatical errors; there is a problem with the English syntax of a large number of questions, and articles are frequently omitted. To cite a few random examples: Which of the following was not true of James Augustus Hickey?...(B) He always worked for the press freedom;...(D) He was sent to prison by Company Government for being fearless journalist (II; Q 32); In which year the book Hind Swaraj was written? (II; Q 37); What was the common feature between the Wahabi and Kuka Movements? (A) Both began as religious movement (sic), but drifted to become political movement (sic); (B) Both were political and economical (sic) movement; ...(D) Both not suffered from (sic) certain weaknesses, such as communal passions, fanaticism and division with ranks (sic) (III; Q 54); Due to whose efforts Widow Remarriage Act was passed? (III; Q 57); Madam Cama made signicant contribution in reforming the Parsi society (III; Q 63). The Hindi syntax is better, but not entirely free of inaccuracies: kis varsh mein vigyan ki shiksha ke liye Indian Association ki sthapna hui? (III; Q 58). As would be noticed, the Hindi version of the question does not even mention the full name of the organisation, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, while in the English version association, cultivation and science are not capitalised. Considering that good language skills are vital for a historian (how else would a historian produce a good narrative?), such a cavalier attitude towards construction of sentences does not inspire much condence in the examiners who have set these question papers.
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My guess is that those associated with formulating questions for the colonial period are slightly better acquainted with Maharashtra than with other parts of the subcontinent. Names of historical personalities from the region, belonging to the 19th and 20th centuries, appear with much greater frequency than those from other areas and have no spelling mistakes. The north-east is of course virtually an unknown terrain. Thus the name of the legendary Naga freedomghter, Rani Gaidinliu, is unrecognisable as Gardinulu in both the English and Hindi versions (II: Q 43). Factual Errors There are then a couple of factual errors, unpardonable in any question paper, but more so at this level. The rst question in Paper II requires the candidate to match names of books with authors. The books listed are: (a) Sketch of [the] Political History of India (1811); (b) The History of British India (1881); (c) The History of India (1841); (d) The Early History of India (1904). The authors in the corresponding list are: V A Smith, John Malcolm, James Mill and (Mountstuart) Elphinstone. Of the books mentioned in the question, the most well known is Mills History of British India. This work was rst published in 1817-18, and any reasonably knowledgeable undergraduate student of history would know that of the four books, this was the earliest to be published. However, the question places its publication in 1881. As the same date appears in the Hindi version this is obviously not a misprint. There is then a question which seeks to know: Who of the following Governor Generals (Governors-General) started the Indian Civil Services? (II; Q 33). This is an absurd question since the evolution of the colonial bureaucracy was a process spread over a long period. It was not specically started an odd term to use during the tenure of any of the governors-general who are listed as options (Bentinck, Wellesley, Cornwallis, Warren Hastings), all of whom contributed to its development. During the latter half of the 18th century, the East India Companys non-military personnel (writers, factors,
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junior merchants, senior merchants), and occasionally its military ofcials, were increasingly saddled with administrative and judicial responsibilities to govern the companys expanding empire. These were the covenanted servants of the company, those who had been recruited in Britain on the recommendation of some member of the court of directors and had signed a covenant or bond at the time of their formal appointment. These covenanted servants, as distinct from the less-privileged uncovenanted servants, lled the highest civilian positions in the directly-administered territories of the British Indian empire. Recruitment of covenanted servants through a public examination held in England commenced as late as 1855, and the nomenclature Civil Service of India or simply the Indian Civil Services (ICS) was not adopted till the 1890s (the tenures of the governors-general listed as choices fall between the 1770s and 1830s). As a matter of fact it was after the Charter Act of 1854, which divested directors of the East India Company of the right to nominate recruits for the covenanted service that steps were initiated to create a modern bureaucracy for governing the Indian empire. For this purpose a committee headed by T B Macaulay was constituted to recommend methods of recruitment and training for civil servants. If one were very keen to nd out who started the Indian Civil Services, then it would be wiser to consider the role of the Macaulay Committee. But even that would not be the right answer. Fundamental Problem The fundamental problem with the NET examination for history is that it is not designed to evaluate a candidates understanding of historical processes. Rather, the questions are framed such that candidates would be discouraged from reecting about these processes. This works to the disadvantage of those students who are trained to look for patterns and interconnections and not worry too much about who said something rst, did something rst or started something rst. The two question papers abound with trivia of this sort:
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Who was the rst to propound the theory of Aryan invasion on (sic) India? (III; Q 6); The rst woman who got nominated to the Madras Legislative Council in 1927 was... (III; Q 64); and the peculiarly-formulated, The concept of Oriental Despotism in Indian history was introduced by whom? (II; Q 4). The last cited example provides an insight into the conception that the team of paper setters have of the history of ideas. What they seem to have in mind is the enormous inuence that James Mills view of Indias past, as being marked by Oriental Despotism, had on historywriting during the 19th century. Whereas it is true that Mills History had an important role in propagating this notion, yet the notion itself has a much longer history even in its application to Indian history. To Montesquieu should go the credit for making this notion part of the dominant western discourse about precolonial India, especially through his extensive discussion on Asian despotism in The Spirit of the Laws (1748). The concept was already being used in the late 18th century, mainly in the context of debates over the purpose of British rule in India, and therefore, Mill cannot be regarded as having introduced it in Indian history. Lack of Academic Sophistication The questions reveal an utter lack of academic sophistication. Consider this question: Which of the following is not one of the causes responsible for the rise of moneylenders in British India? (A) New Revenue Policy; (B) New Legal System; (C) New Education System; (D) Commercialisation of Agriculture (III; Q 53). To begin with, this question assumes that there were no moneylenders in preBritish India, or that they were of no signicance. There is now a vast historical literature on banking, moneylenders, credit and nance in the late precolonial period. Moreover, the options available as answers (barring option D) are far too vague for a precise response. Which is the new revenue policy being referred to? We know that there were diverse colonial revenue policies, rather than some specic new policy, that might have allowed moneylenders to ourish in the
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COMMENTARY

countryside. Similarly, a colonial legal system, and a colonial education system evolved under British rule. Replacing the term colonial with new makes the question inexact, if not unintelligible. A more serious objection to such a question is that it does not demand any familiarity with debates on the place of moneylenders in the agrarian economy during the colonial period. The reasons for their so-called rise are taken as established truths and not as historical problems. That academic debates are not of much interest to those entrusted with preparing these question papers is evident from another question, this time an assertion about the drain of wealth (III; Q 48; also III; 52). That there was a drain of wealth from India to Britain during the colonial period is regarded as axiomatic. As someone who is convinced of the essential validity of the argument underlying the drain of wealth thesis, I am still uncomfortable with treating it as a given. There are serious debates in economic history on this issue, which appear to have bypassed UGC-NET examiners. Inconsequential Quotations One might refer in passing to the fondness for inconsequential quotations. One illustration would sufce. It utilises the vacuous platitudes that colonial ofcials routinely mouthed, which had no real bearing upon colonial policies. Lord Moiras well-known statement Imparting education to natives is our moral duty is the subject of a question that asks the candidate to name the author of the quote. That the colonial state had little interest in imparting education to natives, makes this statement historically worthless as it tells us nothing about either colonial education policies, or the tenure of Moira (later Lord Hastings, governor-general, 1813-23). Why then ask such an irrelevant question? There has to be a difference between an examination for evaluating professional aptitude of history teachers at the university level and a quiz programme such as Kaun Banega Crorepati intended for recreation (the format is identical; most questions have the one query and four options format).
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Conclusions One would like to conclude by commenting upon a set of questions that would indicate that even those who moderated the papers have done their job shoddily. Usually it is the job of a moderation committee to make sure that the questions in a paper make sense to the candidates and are free of errors, and one would suppose that there was such a committee to oversee these papers. Questions 71 to 75 of Paper III are based upon a long passage on the military organisation of the East India Company. The passage is taken from Sekhar Bandyopadhyays From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India (Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2006 reprint, rst published, 2004, paperback, pp 106-07). The context is a discussion by Bandyopadhyay of recruitment practices of the company in north India, i e, the recruitment of sipahis for the Bengal Army. It might be mentioned here that the companys army had three distinct components, namely, the Bengal Army, the Madras Army and the Bombay Army, each with its own traditions. The recruitment practices of these three components were not uniform. For instance, the Bombay Army had a large number of dalit soldiers drawn mainly from among the Mahars and Mangs. On the other hand, the Bengal Army avoided recruiting soldiers from lower castes. A large part of the passage from Bandyopadhyays book relates specically to the Bengal Army, as is clear from the opening sentence as well: The recruitment of the companys army in the 18th century was not just building on the existing traditions of the north India military labour market; those traditions were being adopted to British imperial preferences. It goes on to describe how the Bengal Army came to be dominated by upper-caste soldiers from Awadh and Bihar. Towards the end there are a few comments on the absorption of troops from the disbanded armies of the Maratha states and Mysore, and the beginnings of Gurkha recruitment in the early 19th century. Curiously, the questions make no distinction between the three armies and refer to the companys army generally, for which reason the questions become
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incorrect: The Companys army consisted of (A) Upper Caste Brahman (sic) and Rajput (sic); (B) Landed Peasants from Bihar and Bengal; (C) People from rice eating regions; (D) People only from South (sic) (III; Q 72). If we drop Bengal from option B, then all the options would be correct as the company was recruiting simultaneously people from the south, as well as people from rice eating regions and upper castes from Awadh and Bihar. Nevertheless, this question is unrelated to the passage since what Bandyopadhyay is talking about is the process whereby the pre-1857 Bengal Army became an almost exclusively upper caste army. Another question based on the passage states: What kind of payment system British followed in army recruitment (sic)? (A) Malgujari; (B) Ghatwali; (C) Mahalwari; (D) Yadgari (III; Q 73). Whereas the question is a general one about the British Indian army, the passage makes a specic reference to the mode of payment for recruits from among the hill tribes: ...in the hills recruitment was made through local notables and payment was offered through the Mughal system of ghatwali service tenures. This is contrasted with the manner in which the company recruited soldiers in the plains of north India. Bandyopadhyay was drawing attention to a particular mode of recruitment and payment which was actually atypical, but the question makes this out to be a uniform payment system followed by the British. One can only conclude that the examiners themselves did not read through the passage carefully while framing questions on it. All these observations might be dismissed as nitpicking. However, when it is realised that the teaching of history in institutions of higher learning is closely linked to this examination, the inanity of the exercise becomes a matter of worry for all those concerned about the future of the discipline. The message the UGC is sending out is that one can get away with being slipshod in expression, poorly informed, ill-read, obsolete, and conceptually decient. How it hopes to maintain academic standards through the NET examination in the subject is beyond ones comprehension.
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