Hindutva defeat sealed in CA

[Guest guest]

With satisfaction we note that the long drawn out California battle has

drawn to a successful close this afternoon, at 2 p.m.

 

Today’s meeting of the subcommittee of the Board of Education (SBE) has

clearly come down on the side of reason and historical accuracy, with

a vote of 5 : zero,

 

The recommendations of the Dept. of Education were adopted without

*any* changes.

 

That means all the ahistorical and sectarian edits of the two Hindutva

foundations were decisively thrown out. The ‘persuasive’ proposals of

the 50 scholar’s letter and the second (Heitzman-Wolpert-Witzel) panel

as well as the results of the Jan. 6 rout of S. Bajpai carried the

day.

 

Thus, the position of women is correctly stated in the edits as

suppressed, the caste system and suppression of Dalits are back,

polytheism (not ‘God’) is back, and the Aryan migration is back.

 

We now await the final decision of the full State Board on March 9.

 

 

Incidentally, the funniest thing today was that one Hindutvavadins got

up an quoted some ‘Christian’ quotations out of Steve Farmer’s

dissertation on Pico that should have made Farmer a Bible thumping

creationist -- only that those sentences were Pico’s, half a millennium

ago, not Farmer’s. More later. Well, this great idea had been

spread yesterday all over the Indian Civilization list at .

 

Funny, that Hindutvavadins always believe their own inventions and

defamation...

 

Sure enough, the "real reason" for the impending Hindutva defeat was

already foretold this morning by Dr. S. Kalyanaraman in distant Chennai

(though it was not written in his diffuse style, but clearly by a ghost

writer): collusion between the CA Secretary of Education, who is on

Harvard’s Board --I did noy know that--, and the hate "mongering

groups at Harvard." Almost as good as the Farmer 'quote' !

Conspiracies, conspiracies...

 

Seriously speaking, we have been predicting the defeat of the Hindutva

edits ever since the first reports of the irregular (and probably

illegal) procedures at the meeting of Dec. 2 of the SBE’s Curriculum

Commission reached us that day. The SBE just could not uphold the

historically incorrect and obscurant edits made on that day, as pushed

through by one of its Commissioners, in clear collusion with the

Hindutva groups involved; we have reported on this least earlier.

 

The signs on the wall were visible in the materials received during the

informational meeting held at Sacramento on January 6, and when the

revised edits were published by the staff of the Dept. of Education one

week or two ago: almost all of the egregious and ahistorical edits

have been taken out, and today’s procedures at Sacramento have

reconfirmed that.

 

In sum, this is a clear victory for reason and scholarship in the face

of sectarian and politically motivated, right wing action groups. Their

allegiance is elsewhere than in California and they instead aim at

gaining political capital in India.

 

No smiles today but deep anger on the faces of the Hindutvavadins, who

openly admitted defeat, and smiles all around on the faces of the many

groups opposing them.

 

All who have participated in the process of combating this

religio-political ideology and beating it back have good reason to be

elated. One onslaught on the non-sectarian American education system

has been defeated.

 

However, we have to be ready for the next one. Hindutvavadins will

(perhaps) learn from the blatant mistakes made this time, and they

will begin concerted, if futile effort to change textbooks in Texas

two years from now.

 

Congratulations and thanks to all involved, all around the globe. Just

occasionally, at least some of us have to get out of the Ivory Towner

and take a stand.

 

M.Witzel

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Michael Witzel

Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street , 3rd floor, Cambridge MA 02138

1-617-495 3295 Fax: 496 8571

direct line: 496 2990

<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>

<Indo-Eurasian_research/>

< http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/>