Status of Holocaust teaching in secondary level of education in Kerala: analysis and suggestions

Abstract

Holocaust education in India has been overlooked for reasons ranging from the perception of the Holocaust as a European event to the simultaneous historical occurrence of Indian Independence in the 1940s. The study aims to address the existing gap in research on Holocaust education in the South of India by analysing the status of Holocaust education in the state of Kerala and providing feasible suggestions for improvement. The Cochin Jews were the oldest Jewish settlers in India dating back to 10th century CE. The Jewish settlement in Kerala resonates with the history, architecture and cultural arts of the state. As an integral part of the state’s history, teaching Jewish history and the Holocaust is inevitable for a comprehensive understanding of the periodical development of the state. Presently, the Jewish community in Kerala is on the brink of fading into history. The purposeful teaching of the Jewish settlement and the Holocaust would protect Jewish history of the state from historical erasure. The research attempts to study the Jewish presence and Holocaust teaching within school syllabi across Kerala. The paper analyses the history textbooks of the Kerala State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) syllabi for classes IX or X. The study uses ten guidelines of Holocaust education devised by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) for the textual analysis of the history chapters introducing the Holocaust in the primary texts. The study concludes that the NCERT textbook provides a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust compared to the Kerala SCERT or ICSE textbook.