A huge row has broken out in the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 61 million) on the issue of the state’s ruling BJP government printing hindutva-inspired textbooks for primary school children enroled in 46,000 government and 3,500 aided primary schools statewide. In February, hundreds of students marching under the banner of 14 organisations including the Students’ Federation of India, National Students’ Union of India and Democratic Youth Federation of India, gheraoed the Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT) office in Bangalore to protest ‘saffronisation’ of textbooks. Addressing a press conference in Bangalore on March 2, former Congress state education minister B.K. Chandrashekar joined the fray and demanded reconstitution of the state government-run Karnataka Textbooks Society (KTS), which selects authors to write textbooks for government and aided schools affiliated with the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board. According to him, Prof. G.S. Mudambadithaya, convenor of KTS, is a card-carrying member of the Hindu right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with a mission to propagate hindutva ideology. Chandrashekar alleged that together with state primary and secondary education minister Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, Mudambadithaya has “tinted the books with biases and prejudices”. “Kageri claims the textbooks follow the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 guidelines, issued by the Congress-led UPA-I government. But actually these books have been modelled on NCF 2000, developed by the BJP-led NDA government (1999-2004) which propagated hindutva. I will write to the chief minister requesting him to scrap these textbooks immediately,” he says. Congress spokespersons point out that the texts glorify the Akhand Bharat propaganda of the RSS whose pipe dream is to include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Sri Lanka inside a greater India. According to Mudambadithaya, following the furore, the Akhand Bharat map has been dropped from the class VIII social science textbook while being retained under the chapter ‘Ancient India’ in class V social science text. Other criticisms of the texts include the conspicuous absence of any positive references to Dravidians and the Dalits, even as Brahmins and Kshatriyas are glorified. Moreover Hyder Ali, the celebrated anti-British ruler of the Mysore kingdom (1722-1782) is described as an “enemy”. Also there is exaggerated emphasis on Vedic temples and Hindu shrines and rituals to the exclusion of even cursory references to other religions. “Although KTS professes to have revised the first draft of both texts, I know an entire chapter on the Vedic Age has been authored by Jagadguru Shankaracharya Sri Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji (of the Sringeri Math) and included without any changes,” says C.S. Dwarakanath, former chairman, Karnataka Permanent Backward Classes Commission. However, Mudambadithaya contends that all textbooks for government and aided schools are written by academics and scholars selected jointly by KTS and director of DSERT, H.S. Ramarao. According to him, all final drafts of the textbooks are sent to the education minister, the commissioner of public instruction and state editorial board for approval, following which they are sent to District Institutes of Educational and Training (DIETs) and Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs)…
