Media on CA Textbook Issue

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Curriculum Changes in Calif. Textbooks

News Report, Viji Sundaram,

India West, Dec 02, 2005

 

 

"One reason the protests of Hindu and Sikh activists may well be

brushed off by the CBE is the fact that there is little sign that

these demands have resonated either within the broader Indian

American community in California, or the substantial number of

humanities experts of Indian descent in U.S. academia.

With several hundred thousand Indian Americans in the state, none of

the major community organizations has expressed any support. Witzel's

letter, on the other hand, includes signatories like Harvard

professor Homi Bhabha, University of Michigan professor Madhav

Deshpande, in addition to Thapar, arguably one of the world's most

respected experts in ancient Indian history."

 

Some Hindu and Sikh activists in the U.S. who have been trying in

recent months to persuade the California Board of Education to adopt

curriculum revisions in textbooks for elementary and middle school

students say they are unhappy over the direction their efforts seem

to have taken while on the home stretch.

 

A clutch of academics and historians, who have just recently joined

the debate, seems to have neutralized the gains the activists believe

they had made. The academics weighed in with their views Nov. 8,

which collectively dismiss many of the curriculum changes suggested

over the past year by individual Hindus, as well as such

organizations as the Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Society.

 

For example, one of the statements Hindu activists want deleted from

a social science book is that Aryans were a "part of a larger group

of people historians refer to as the Indo-Europeans."

 

The activists assert Aryans were not a race, but a term for persons

of noble intellect. The academics have urged that this statement not

be removed.

 

In that same book, Hindu activists want the statement, "Men had many

more rights than women," replaced with, "Men had different duties

(dharma) as well as rights than women. Many women were among the

sages to whom the Vedas were revealed."

 

The response from the academics? "Do not change original text."

 

Writing on behalf of the academics, Michael Witzel, a Sanskrit

professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., asserted that

the groups proposing the changes have a hidden agenda.

 

"The proposed revisions are not of a scholarly but of a religious-

political nature, and are primarily promoted by Hindutva supporters

and non-specialist academics writing about issues far outside their

area of expertise," Witzel wrote to CBE president Ruth Green in the

letter.

 

Among the 45 or so signatories to his letter are Stanley Wolpert,

professor of history at UCLA, and Romila Thapar, India's well-known

historian.

 

Witzel also said that in the last two years, Indian educators

themselves have "soundly repudiated" similar revisions in Indian

history textbooks suggested by Hindu groups.

 

The CBE has included the recommendations by Witzel and other

academics who have co-signed his letter, under the heading, "Final

Recommendations," which seems to suggest that its vote later this

week would more than likely favor the academics.

 

"I think the (December) meeting is a mere formality," noted

Princeton, N.J., resident Rajiv Malhotra, who participated in the

push for reforms. "I think the deck is stacked against Hindus," he

told India-West.

 

Even so, supporters and opponents of reforms are planning to show up

in large numbers at the Board of Education office in Sacramento Dec.

1 and 2, when the curriculum commission is slated to vote on the

suggested changes.

 

Supporters are hoping to make a last ditch effort to have their

voices heard. They say it is crucial that the CBE accepts their

suggestions if students are to get a proper perspective of Indian

culture and history.

 

"The social science and history textbooks do not give as generous a

portrayal of Indian culture as they do of Islamic, Jewish and

Christian cultures," asserted Malhotra, founder of Infinity

Foundation, an organization that is trying to give a "fair" portrayal

of India in the U.S. "The Board of Education needs to have a standard

that should be applied to all religions."

 

"There's a Euro-centric slant to what's being taught in California

classrooms," noted San Francisco Bay Area resident Mona Vijaykar to

India-West. "I'm upset that India's contribution to modern

civilization is not highlighted, and presented like European

civilization is."

 

Vijaykar runs the "India in Classrooms" program she launched two

years ago in the San Francisco Bay Area to set right misconceptions

teachers and students have about Indian history and culture.

 

And Prof. Onkar S. Bindra, who teaches Indian studies at the

Renaissance Society, a retirement learning facility at California

State University in Sacramento, complained that most of the social

science and history books have no mention about the contributions

Sikhs have made in their homeland or in their adopted country.

 

"There are 200,000 Sikhs in California, a significant enough number

to deserve mention in California textbooks," Bindra told India-West.

 

One reason the protests of Hindu and Sikh activists may well be

brushed off by the CBE is the fact that there is little sign that

these demands have resonated either within the broader Indian

American community in California, or the substantial number of

humanities experts of Indian descent in U.S. academia.

 

With several hundred thousand Indian Americans in the state, none of

the major community organizations has expressed any support. Witzel's

letter, on the other hand, includes signatories like Harvard

professor Homi Bhabha, University of Michigan professor Madhav

Deshpande, in addition to Thapar, arguably one of the world's most

respected experts in ancient Indian history.

 

Every six years, the CBE meets with textbook publishers for possible

revisions.

 

The books are then sent to all the educational institutions in the 50

counties in the state so educators and parents can offer suggestions.

 

The CBE began the elaborate revision process about one year ago.

Since then, it has been reviewing the suggested changes, including

those it received at public hearings it held.

 

At one of those hearings in November, for nearly five hours the 13-

member CBE board heard members of the Hindu and Sikh communities put

forth their arguments for changes. Most said they felt slighted by

the materials in the textbooks.

 

Vijaykar told India-West that a social science textbook depicted a

Hindu bride as sitting with a white sheet pulled over her head in

front of a sacred fire, as if "she was weighed down by the sheet."

And brides in India don't wear white, only widows do, she said.

 

"Hinduism is not treated with the same respect as Christianity or

Judaism," Dr. Mihir Meghani, president of the Hindu American

Foundation, told the board. Unlike in those faiths, "the sacred

scriptures of Hinduism are referred to as legends or myths."

 

Bindra, among other Sikh speakers that day, told the board that the

existing textbooks will not help elementary and middle school

students in identifying with and respecting the Sikh culture,

something that is so important, especially after 9/11.

 

"Students need to know that almost everyone who wears turbans in

America are Sikhs from Punjab in India, and they have nothing to do

with the Taliban or Osama bin Laden," he said.

 

Among the Hindu groups trying to push for curriculum changes are the

Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation.

 

Trying to get more Hindus involved in what it called the "Curriculum

Reform Initiative," the Vedic Foundation cited a passage in one of

the existing textbooks that spoke of Hanuman in a frivolous manner.

The foundation pointed out that "teachings such as these promote the

rejection of a valuable spiritual and cultural tradition by Hindu

youth."

 

But the issue has also pitted one group of Indian Americans against

some others. Leftist and political activist Angana Chatterji, who

teaches at the San Francisco-based California Institute of Integral

Studies, told India-West that like Witzel and his supporters, she

believes that those pushing for curriculum changes in the history

books are "Hindu nationalists," and the changes they are proposing

are "not ethical."

 

For example, she said, those pushing for reforms want India to be

portrayed as a former "Hindu state."

 

"I agree some parts of the curriculum require re-representation,"

Chatterji said, but quickly noted: "History isn't about how good we

feel about ourselves. There's a difference between history and

nationalism."

 

Former deputy superintendent of the San Mateo and Foster City school

districts Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who once served on a math textbook

evaluation committee, felt that some of the demands of the Hindu

organizations were a stretch -- asking that the history textbooks say

that Ram Rajya lasted for 1.8 million years, for one.

 

"A scientific mind is not going to accept that," Prasad said,

pointing out, however, that depicting brides in the manner described

by Vijaykar needs to be corrected.

 

He defended the CBE's curriculum revision modus operandi as "fair and

just."

 

"They are not prejudiced people," Prasad told India-West, noting that

CBE members take their responsibilities very seriously because "they

realize that if they screw up in California, the rest of the nation

will be screwed."

 

California is the largest purchaser of textbooks and, therefore,

educational publishers are careful to win approval from the CBE.

 

"The trend has always been that whatever California adopts, most of

the rest of the nation adopts," Prasad said.

 

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