Today, the atlas shrugged

History is about chaps, geography is about maps. This may sound like a tweet-savvy academic in a chirpy mood, but is actually an old saying. Whoever said it hadn’t dealt with a feminist. In today’s interdependent world, however, more than chaps and maps, my worry is about gaps — gaps in knowledge. Just how breathtaking this has become was evident last week.
A survey by Journeys of Distinction, one of Britain’s luxury tour specialists, revealed that more than half of British adults (58.6 per cent) believed that Mount Everest was in England. This created an instant stir here. The Herald, a Glasgow newspaper, also mentions that just over 20 per cent of those questioned also “admit they do not know how many countries are actually in the UK”.

Barely had we stopped smirking at the Britons that we ran into a row over the use of the word “Chutia”. Media reports said that Facebook had reportedly blocked accounts of members of the All-Assam Chutia Students Union (Aacsu), mixing up Chutia (pronounced Sutiya), a community in Assam, with a Hindi expletive. Predictably, there were howls of protest.
The Chutia confusion evoked much mirth among tweeple and social media enthusiasts in the country. It also told us a lot of things we did not know: Chutia is not only an Assamese tribe with a rich heritage, it is also the name of a village near Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand. Google has a map showing lower Chutia and upper Chutia. Chutia has a police station and even a branch of the State Bank of India! You can’t get more respectable than that.
At the time of writing, the Aacsu and its members have resurfaced on Facebook but the two incidents in two countries, oceans apart, bring back memories of an incident that happened years ago when I was a journalism student. During a class on editing, we were given reports put out by a news agency, asked to spot inaccuracies, if any, and suggest stylistic changes. A girl sitting next to me, product of one of Delhi’s finest colleges, excitedly told me she had spotted a howler in the very first sentence — the dateline. “Look at this. It says Liberia. There is no such place. There is Libya and Siberia. Obviously, someone mashed them up, and came up with Liberia,” she said.
Her astounding ignorance about Africa was matched by ignorance about India’s Northeast. But she was not the only one. Few in the class could name all the northeastern states; fewer still knew their capitals.
Cut to 2012. Technology has led to an explosion of information. The atlas has moved to Google. And yet, huge numbers of people know little or nothing about communities, countries, regions of their own countries which don’t flash on their radar on a day-to-day basis. Of course, this is not true of everyone. In Britain, for example, a 2011 report by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills revealed a hugely polarised picture of school geography teaching. While geography was flourishing in a minority of the schools visited by inspectors, it was found to be under pressure in the rest.
The United States has been traditionally shaky on geography. In 2002, a national report card on geography in that country found that 16 per cent of eighth graders could not locate the Mississippi River on a map; only one quarter of high-school seniors were able to interpret maps and describe regional features and socio-economic and political factors.
In 2006, the National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs Geographic Literacy study revealed that 48 per cent of young Americans believe the majority population in India is Muslim. There is more — only 37 per cent of young Americans can find Iraq on a map; 20 per cent of young Americans think Sudan is in Asia; and 50 per cent of young Americans can’t find New York on a map.
Only about a quarter of American schoolchildren scored “proficient” or above on a 2010 geography test, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress. Now, there is a campaign, led by the National Geographic Education Foundation and others, to make America a more geo-literate society so that young Americans can face a global future.
What about India? How do we fare on geographical literacy? I have not seen any recent international survey which addresses this question. As is the case in so many other countries, it depends a lot on the school one attends. In well-managed private schools where there are good teachers and enough resources, geography is taught well. In resource-strapped places, nothing is taught well, including geography.
We have a peculiar problem. Many of our youngsters probably know where Mississippi is, but will be scratching their heads when asked about certain parts of India. The ignorance and lack of interest about the Northeast persists.
In his blog, Paritosh Chakma cites a telling observation made by Swaraj Kaushal, former governor of Mizoram, during a Rajya Sabha debate on May 17, 2000: “I am very sorry to share with this House that some of the ministers used to ask me ‘How was Gegong Apang?’ little realising that Mr Apang was the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh. Sometimes I was told that I was staying at a beautiful place called Shillong. Shillong is the capital of Meghalaya and I was the governor of Mizoram.”
And yet in today’s world, whether we live in India or anywhere else, geography matters more than ever. Conflicts and contagious diseases care two hoots about national or international borders. Fernando Reimers, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says preparing children to be “globally competent”, as well as map-savvy, is critical in today’s world. Some have even termed the 21st-century version of geography as “global cultural literacy”, in which a basic historical and cultural context of various parts of the world is as important as map literacy. Computer literacy is vital to cope with the fast-changing world today. Maybe, global cultural literacy should also be considered just as necessary.
While we talk about making geographic literacy more widespread, India has to simultaneously deal with illiteracy. This country is home to the largest number of unlettered people. A country with growing clout in the world cannot afford that. For the literates, the task ahead is cut out. In order to understand places which affect us, we should be able to first spot them on the map. The fracas over Chutia was welcome. It made me browse through many maps.

The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies. She can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com [2]