Allegations of saffronisation of school textbooks in BJP-ruled
Karnataka have reached the Centre with demands for a thorough probe into
“academically poor and saffronised textbooks with many a distortion and
misrepresentation”.
The Committee for Resisting Saffronisation of Education has
submitted a memorandum to the NCERT as well as to Human Resource
Development Minister Pallam Raju alleging that the new textbooks
released for class V and VIII by the Karnataka Textbook Society are for
most part against the spirit of the National Curriculum Framework 2005
and have a “hidden agenda to instill and build up non-secular values,
religious fundamentalism and the idea of a Hindu Rashtra in crores of
young and impressionable minds”.
The NCERT is learnt to have written to their counterparts in
Karnataka on the issue seeking their response on it, sources confirmed.
The committee has in its memorandum — a copy of which is with The
Indian Express — said that while the new textbooks have been released
by the Karnataka Textbook Society (under the DSERT), these were not
subjected to scrutiny by independent or well-known educationists and nor
was public opinion invited on them.
The committee has alleged that these books contain lessons that
“treat Dalits, women, adivasis and minorities as inferior beings whereas
NCF 2005 clearly recommends that the curriculum should be culturally
neutral”. It is alleged that history presentation in the textbooks was
found “toeing the line of the Sangh Parivar”.
Pointing out specific instances from the class V social science
textbook, the committee has said that there is a clear anti-minority
bias in content depicting Muslim kings as persecuting Hindu subjects and
Hindu kings only fighting Muslim kings. An instance from the class VIII
Hindi textbook refers to a lesson on ‘Punyakoti’ where a tiger takes an
oath saying that “consumption of cow’s meat is a bad thought;
henceforth, I will not eat cow’s meat”, whereas the original Kannada
version mentions no such oath.
Demanding that the school textbooks be offered for scrutiny by
the NCERT, the committee has suggested that the Karnataka Textbook
Society, when preparing new textbooks, should consult its counterparts
in Kerala who are considered experts in the field and invite suggestions
from eminent educationists and the public.
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