K’taka saffronising school texts: Panel

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Anubhuti Vishnoi: New Delhi, Jan 17 2013, 00:13 IST

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

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Reader's Comments (10)| Post a Comment

wow

afzal | 17-Jan-2013Reply | Forward

Now politicians are peeping into education, thats cool, now our your kids will be ruined in their hands.

It is time to completely separate Veer Savarkar's Hindutva ideolgy from this Dhongi Majority of RSS and VHP

Gaurav | 17-Jan-2013Reply | Forward

The biggest problem of our societal set-up is that our education system and our up-bringing are influenced by biases, political vested interests, power hungry desires and AHAM BRAHMASMI (I am the only great) attitudes. Events and realities in the history of this sub-continent are distorted within seconds on the basis of religion,faiths,castes, etc. to extract immediate benefit to RULE THE MASSES as it is the most easiest way to motivate and attract crazy empty brains at will. Hinduism is absolutely not a religion it is just a way of life. The word Hindu itself is a PERSIAN word which originates from the river Sindhu. At the same time, these committees should be replaced by eminent un-biased intellectuals who have the guts to introduce and safeguard the real historical events in the schooling literature. It is unfortunate that the painful work and sacrifice of V.D Savarkar has gone waste. Both, the Congis and the so-called Right Fascists have exploited the word HINDU.

Shocking

raj | 17-Jan-2013Reply | Forward

Shocking I would say. We have heard Taliban and Irans Aytollahs doing the same to women and the people of those nations. But to see in a so called modern democratic India this is shocking. The netas after robbing the roads, banks, our childrens education, rivers, massive looting have finally arrived to the core - train people to become pigs. That is what pakistan, srilanka, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Mali forces all do. It is good BJP is competing with medieval islamists to get a spot in the same pedastal.