The revision of the school textbooks in the state has attracted controversy for a few months now. There are claims from various people that the committee headed by a writer with right wing leanings has removed chapters on Bhagat Singh, trimmed information on Tipu Sultan, included speech of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar among other changes. In the wake of all such controversies, the chairperson of the committee Rohith Chakratirtha spoke to Rashmi Belur of DH.
1. Is it necessary to revise the textbooks every time the government changes?
- The revision of textbooks will not create any confusion among children. The revision is needed until the textbooks are made error free. In fact, these confusions and controversies were started by Baraguru Ramachandrappa. If he hadn’t changed the textbooks revised by Mudambadithaya, this revision would not have happened. The books revised by Mudambadithaya committee were the best and were informative.
But in the name of revision, Ramachandrappa tried to impose ideology, lies and wrong information to children and this created confusion.
2. There is a strong allegation that the committee has saffronised textbooks?
- Those who are raising allegations have not read or seen the revised textbooks and we don’t need to react to such people or allegations.
3. By including the speech of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, founder of RSS, in textbooks, is the committee trying to impose right wing ideology on children?
- The draft copies of textbooks circulating on various social media platforms are forged versions of the textbooks amended by us. Vested interests have deleted some parts and added other versions just to create confusion.
There is nothing about Hedgewar in the textbook. We have just included his speech copy and nothing about ideology and political party. Those who are creating controversy are doing it just because of his name. The children will not study about him, instead his speech which conveys that truth and honesty shall be the role model. Even Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ said the same thing. Not accepting just because it is said by Hedgewar is fascist mentality.
4. Are chapters on Bhagat Singh, Narayana Guru, Swami Vivekananda and Tipu Sultan removed?
- We have not removed any chapter on Bhagat Singh. In fact, we have added more information. Same is true of Narayana Guru. Baraguru Ramachandrappa had filled the earlier textbooks with lies and propaganda, based on things which were actually not said or practised by Swami Vivekananda. We have corrected it and added more personalities like Ambedkar and Mahatma
Gandhi into the chapter. We had to remove unnecessary information on Tipu Sultan. We have not trimmed anything about him while talking about the wars.
5. Is it true that stories written by progressive writers are removed?
- It has been several years since progressive writers became regressive and they are not relevant. We have just revised the textbooks and this was not based on ideology. Instead, we looked for something new in their writings and opportunities for language learning. Since we did not find anything new, we decided to remove the lessons.
6. There are allegations that some lessons promote Brahminism and are gender insensitive?
- There is a chapter by Bannanje Govindacharya, but it was not written by him, he has just translated it from Sanskrit. We have made several changes in that particular
chapter and the gender issue has been neutralised. And those who are talking about Brahminism, it is their perspective. I don’t consider Devanuru Mahadeva as a Dalit and Shatavadhani Ganesh as Brahmin. I look only at the content they write. Only narrow minded people can look at authors based on the community they hail from.
7. What if the new government revises the textbooks after a year?
- We are 100% okay with the revision of textbooks, but they should explain to us why they are revising and what are the faults they find in our textbooks. We have even invited Ramachandrappa to know why they revised the textbooks. But, he has not responded.