No nudes for the prudes

Obscuring Mohenjo Daro figurine is a sign of intellectual hollowness

Alok Tiwari

As if messing up their examinations — and their future — was not enough, we are now out to mess up the hearts and minds of poor CBSE students. Who would have thought this would be the new battlefield in our cultural wars? It was not long ago when the Supreme Court took umbrage at the passing reference about corruption in judiciary in the class 8 textbook. The court banned the book and ordered all copies withdrawn because it did not wish to see the young minds polluted by the thoughts of corruption in high places. For a court that has watched civil liberties erode, democracy develop cracks, and secularism crumble while barely raising a finger, the concern for the young minds was touching.

Now mandarins of NCERT that publishes CBSE textbooks are suffering similar pangs of conscience. They quietly darkened the image of an Indus Valley Civilization bronze figurine ‘Dancing Girl’ in the class 9 textbooks because — horror! — it is wearing no clothes. The figure is more than 4600 years old and among the best-known artefacts from Mohenjo Daro. The original is housed in national museum in Delhi where it is open for viewing for people of all ages. Its image has appeared multiple times not just in school textbooks but also in newspapers, magazines, and books of art and history. The image was darkened from the torso downwards to about its knees because the new guardians of our morality thought it was not age appropriate for the 15 or so year olds.

The four-inch figurine has been studied for a lot of things in the decades since its discovery. Scientists have studied it to know about the state of metallurgy of that era. Archaeologists and historians have tried to decipher the way of life when Indus Valley civilization was at its peak. CBSE academics are, however, first to view the figurine from the eye of porn consumers. All they could see in it was that the girl wore no clothes.

Like beauty, obscenity also lies in the eyes of the beholder. Generations of students, parents, and teachers have seen the image without thinking of it as a nude figure, much less an obscene one. Now come the goody two shoes to keep our students strictly within the norms of decency and decree that teens must not be exposed to such shameless examples from our glorious past.

It should also lead us to alter our view of the civilization whose legacy we proudly claim. How exalted could those people be if they were allowing nude figures to be made? Was there no censor board that could pass the artefacts as suitable for viewing by population at large. Or could it be that some early versions of Bajrang Dal and Karni Sena had got outraged by the girl’s nudity and buried it in the mud along with the artist and that is how we found it in Mohenjo Daro ruins? It is also possible that the artist belonged to faith other than one practised at the time, a la M F Husain who had painted goddesses in the nude just to insult the majority and had his exhibitions vandalized.

Historians could also investigate whether artists made such figures entirely out of their imagination or real girls modelled for them. One hopes those girls were duly honour-killed by their parents. If not, then we ought to disown the heritage. We cannot be descendants of such degenerate people.

Critics will, as is their wont, bring in Kama Sutra and Khajuraho temples. We already do not even mention the 3^rd century treatise on love and sex in any of our school textbooks even in passing. We might as well banish chapters about Chandela dynasty that built Khajuraho temples. Like Mughals, they must be expunged from our past. They were undoubtedly built under corrupting influence of aliens. Medieval rulers and Church in Europe had attempted to cover Michelangelo’s David to hide frontal nudity of the sculpture. We too might cover the offending portions of Khajuraho and other temples having erotic sculptures. At the very least, we should form a Sanskar Board to grade monuments like films and set age limits for visitors. We can thus shield our youngsters from ancient obscenities. The Board will also be able to restrict access to places that remind of us of inconvenient history. No more visiting Aurangzeb tomb or even Fatehpur Sikri.

On a more serious note, though, there are far more weighty problems in our education system than influence of millennia old figurines. We need to question the intellect of people writing textbooks for our kids and running the education sector. They do not see our continuous slide in global education rankings. They are not concerned about absence of meaningful research. They do not ask why students from almost no country wish to study in our schools and universities. Mindless meddling as seen in this episode is precisely the reason. Excellence in education is directly linked to academic and intellectual freedom. Both arts and science need it.

Our penchant to magnify the trivial and trivialize the substantive knows no bounds. There are any number of people ready to create a ruckus over real or perceived slight to historical and mythological figures. Goons beat up standup comics, artists, and authors, burn books, vandalize theatres and exhibitions all in the name of preserving our culture. We have banned books and savagely censored movies over this. AAP government in Punjab brought a blasphemy law to prevent insult to holy book. But no organization agitates for making our education world class. No demonstrations are held to ask our government why lakhs of our students leave to study abroad.

Happily, uproar has forced NCERT to reverse the decision, and the dancing girl will remain as she was. But who will change the NCERT and the government mindset from that of control to freedom?

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on June 18, 2026