Communists disturbed by US Hindu efforts

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Communists disturbed by US Hindu efforts

People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

http://pd.cpim.org/2005/1204/12042005_nalini.htm

 

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Vol. XXIX No. 49 December 04, 2005

RSS Now Targets California Textbooks

Nalini Taneja

 

THE battle over secular texts on Indian history for schools and a

rational view of the past is not confined to the matter of NCERT

textbooks in India. More recently the RSS inspired organisations and

the Hindutva lobbyists in the US have been over-active in attempting

to change school textbooks in the state of California. That they have

not had a walk-over is thanks to the vigilance and commitment of the

many academics involved in Indian studies all over the world, who

have solidly opposed these moves.

 

 

 

The proposed changes in favour of the Hindutva view of Indian history

and culture in the school texts became known only on November 5,

2005. Some of the individuals who had been asked to sign a

memorandum, prepared by The Vedic Foundation, got alarmed and were

alert enough to write to Professor Witzel of Harvard University, who

has been consistently and publicly writing against the Hindutva

concoctions of history. Thereafter the matter snowballed into a

controversy at November 9 public hearing when a letter from Professor

Michael Witzel was submitted to the Board of Education informing them

of the motivations of the Hindutva efforts and requesting them to

reject the Hindutva-recommended changes.

 

 

 

The State of California is now in the final stages of approving the

history/social science textbooks for grade 6-8 in schools. This

exercise takes place periodically and a number of publishers submit

their books for approval and selection on these occasions to the

Department of Education. It is at this stage this year that two

Hindutva organisations based in the US, the Hindu Education

Foundation and the Vedic Foundation, submitted what they argued were

necessary "corrections" to be made in the textbooks approved, and

Shiva Bajpai, a Hindutva-leaning advisor to the California Board of

Education, succeeded in getting virtually all the changes requested

by them approved by an ad hoc committee of the State Board of

education.

 

 

 

RENOWNED HISTORIANS REJECT HINDUTVA LOBBY CORRECTIONS

 

 

 

Professor Witzel and Professor Steve Farmer, along with fifty other

academics, including renowned Indian historians Romila Thapar, DN Jha

and Shereen Ratnagar, have written to Ruth Green, president, State

Board of Education, California, on behalf of "world specialists on

ancient India", reflecting "mainstream academic opinion in India,

Pakistan, the United States, Europe, Australia, Taiwan and Japan",

to "reject the demands by nationalist Hindu (Hindutva) groups" that

California textbooks be altered to conform to their religious-

political views." They have pointed out that "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 areas of expertise",

and that "these views not reflect the views of majority of the

specialists on ancient Indian history, nor of majority of the Hindus."

 

 

 

Their letter also says that these proposed `corrections' are

motivated by political agendas discriminatory to millions of people

in India, especially the minorities, lower castes, and women, and

that they have been debated thoroughly and rejected in India as well

by academics and secular political forces. They have clearly warned

that the endorsement of the views of these Hindutva so-called

scholars by the California State Board of Education would cause a

virtual international scandal.

 

 

 

They have referred in their letter to the US State

Department "International Religious Freedom Report 2003" and the one

for 2004, which gave considerable space to the social and political

tensions that arose (mentioning Gujarat as example), and were likely

to exacerbate, in India through textbooks that vilified minorities.

Given this, the letter argued, the acceptance of the pro- Hindutva

changes by the State Board of Education in California amounted to

going against the wisdom of US State policy as well.

 

 

 

The Board has now, since the November 9 public hearing, come to

accept the perspective of these eminent scholars, and has since been

working with them to allow only such changes as meet the standards of

objective scholarship. Yet the battle is not over. The next public

hearing is scheduled for December 1, after which the State Board on

Education will take its decision to finally reject/include the

changes it initially approved at the behest of their Hindutva leaning

advisor, Shiv Bajpai. The final step in the process is the adoption

of the recommendation of the Board of Education by the Curriculum

Commission also on December 1-2, 2005.

 

 

 

STRENGTHENING THE SECULAR POSITION

 

 

To strengthen the secular position a petition has also been

circulated on the internet and signatures are pouring in every day.

They have also appealed to the public at large that "If you believe

in teaching California's children true history and culture of India,

it is very important for you to attend the public hearing on December

1 and 2 in Sacramento and voice your opinion rejecting the Hindutva-

recommended changes." The major demand is that no changes should be

made in textbooks at the behest of any organisation/individual other

than the distinguished panel of scholars the Board has been working

with since November 9.

 

 

 

On the other side, Pranawa C Deshmukh, a professor of physics at

Indian Institute of Technology is mobilising Hindutva forces in

support of the changes suggested by the Vedic Foundation and the RSS-

inspired Hindu Education Foundation. A large number of their cronies

are likely to either write to the Curriculum Commission or show up at

the public hearing. Among such members is the notorious David

Frawley!

 

 

 

A look at the specific changes demanded by the Hindutva organisations

would show them to be integral to the Sangh Parivar political agenda,

and very similar to what the BJP government was trying to do here

with the NCERT syllabus and the NCERT textbooks in social sciences,

particularly history.

 

 

 

CORRECTION SUGGESTED BY HINDUTVA FORCES

 

 

For example, among the `corrections' suggested is a clear attempt to

deny the integrality, in fact the very mention of the caste system in

ancient India. On women, they are anxious to present their gender

bias in the form of `difference', a very fashionable and now

sanctioned social science category pushed through by post modernists.

 

 

 

In one textbook the changes included a specific addition that "the

recent archaeological proofs are negating the Aryan invasion theory.

The new theory suggests that Aryans were not the outsiders." The

lines saying "Men had many more rights than women" was to be replaced

by "Men had different duties (dharma) and rights than women. Many

women were among the sages to whom the Vedas were revealed."

 

 

 

In another textbook the entire paragraph on the caste system was to

be deleted, and the picture of an untouchable removed. Other

corrections pertained to putting back the dates for the Rig Veda,

confusing the dates of the Indus and Harappa city-based civilisations

with the Vedic civilization to show the antiquity/indigenous origin

of the Aryans in India, conflating Brahmanical beliefs with Hinduism,

denying the plurality of gods worshipped through history in favour of

one God in different forms, depicting shudras as "serving all

classes" and doing "labour intensive work" rather than serving the

three upper castes and so on. The sentences dealing with the

sacredness of the cows, diet, were also suitably amended.

 

 

 

Tolerance was presented as "usual" for the time of Ashoka in ancient

India, and references to science and mathematics in ancient India

were modified so as to present it as the earliest and greatest

civilisation, while references to the negative aspects of society in

ancient India were sought to be deleted or presented as cultural

specificities rather than oppression. They also wanted to insert long

sections written out by themselves, which were not allowed as they

over- stepped the brief for updating of texts and "corrections".

 

 

 

This entire effort is part of the RSS's larger goal to "educate" the

Hindu children brought up in the US to be "good Hindus" and to "learn

the truth about Indian history and culture", no doubt assisting in

the search for "roots" and "anchor" that the Hindu youth —like the

other immigrants—hanker for! That these children could become

Hindutva's international support one day is one thing; they could

well become its victims right now if the powerful Hindutva

organisations in the US are allowed to have their way.

http://pd.cpim.org/2005/1204/12042005_nalini.htm