Statement on the Karnataka Government Disbanding the Textbook Review Committee

The Chief Minister of Government of Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai, on Friday issued a press statement declaring that the Textbook Review Committee, headed by the right-wing ideologue Rohith Chakrathirtha, was disbanded. The statement also issued certain “clarifications” in regard to the objections raised by several academicians, activists and student unions, but has however failed to clarify in regard to how the clarifications will be effected, i.e., who will review the changes proposed and for which academic year the changes will come into being. Despite this, it can be noted that in the annexure to the press statement issued, it is stated that as on 03.06.2022, the printing of the textbooks is 79.70% complete and that the same has been distributed to 66.98% schools!

The statement issued by the government under the seal of the Chief Minister also states that the reason for the committee to be disbanded is because they have completed their work! The statement comes in light of the severe opposition and backlash against the committee and the statements of the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, B.C. Nagesh. Several renowned authors like Devanooru Mahadeva, G. Ramakrishna, S.G. Siddaramaiah, Bolwar Mahammed Kunhi, Roopa Hassan, Eerappa M. Kambali, Chandrashekhar Talya, Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy, Sarju Katkar, among others withdrew their consent on using their writings in state syllabus textbooks. Meanwhile, writers SG Siddaramaiah, HS Raghavendra Rao, Nataraja Budalu, and Chandrashekhar Nangli wrote to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai resigning from their posts in Dr. GS Shivarudrappa Pratishthana to protest against the ‘insult’ meted out to the state anthem penned by Kuvempu. Thereafter, the Lingayat seers criticized the changes made in regard to Basavanna, and threatened to begin an agitation if the changes are not revoked.

It must be noted that the “clarification” merely seems to have been issued to placate and mislead the people who had raised serious concerns over saffronisation of education, given the textbooks with the lies and false claims to peddle the Hindutva agenda, have already been printed and distributed to students, which is meant to poison young minds with their communal agenda. It must be noted that the press statement specifically speaks of introducing ‘Hindu’ texts under the pretext that ‘Muslim’ and ‘Christian’ texts were already part of the curriculum.

There has been no clarification issued by the government in regard to the allegations made against Rohith Chakrathirtha, and the basis for his appointment as the head of the textbook review panel was made. There has been no clarification provided in the statement as to why the texts of P. Lankesh, G. Ramakrishna, Sara Abubacker, AN Murthy Rao, and others were dropped. Most importantly, the government has not clarified as to why RSS Ideologue K.B Hedgewar’s speech has been introduced in a language textbook. Hence, we reject the so-called clarifications of the Chief Minister.

AISA believes that saffronisation of education is in tow with the National Education Policy – 2020, which is designed to make education exclusionary, unaffordable and preaches manuvadi ideology. The NEP 2020 explicitly states that: “All curriculum and pedagogy, will be strongly rooted in Indian culture and traditions”. Recently the NCERT decided to remove chapters on the rise of Islamic empire, Mughal courts, industrial revolution, globalisation, communalism etc. from their textbooks. Evidently, this is nothing but a ploy to enforce Hindutva ideology in young minds. In NEP 2020, we see a merger of neoliberalism and Hindutva. On one hand, it targets everything that does not fit into the idea of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan and on the other hand it makes education exclusive by corporatising it. This will result in the othering of large sections of the society- from economically marginalised backgrounds and oppressed sections- be it Dalits, Adivasis, religious minorities, and women.

We demand that all the changes made by the textbook review panel headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha be revoked with immediate effect and that the textbooks be re-printed with old lessons retained.

• Reject communalised textbooks!
• We demand lessons on cultural diversity, scientific thinking and secularism!
• Scrap NEP! Reject CUET, FYUP, CBCS!
• Reject Privatisation and Saffronisation of Education! Ensure Free Public Education for All!
• Country needs Common and Equal Opportunity to Access education, NOT Common Tests to Eliminate, when opportunities are so vastly different.
• India’s youth need a policy to Educate-Empower-Emancipate. Instead, CUET-FYUP-NEP is a blueprint to Eliminate-Exit-Exclude!