Many writers, intellectuals, politicians and social activists, who took part in the 18-kilometre-long protest march, followed by a public meeting in Tirthahalli on Wednesday, gave a call for a State-wide movement demanding the withdrawal of the textbooks revised by the committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha.
The protesters maintained that the revision done by the committee was against the basic principles of the Constitution and the committee insulted great personalities, poets and social reformers of the land. The time has come for the people to raise against the onslaught on the identities of Kannada.
Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah, addressing the public meeting in Tirthahalli, said the textbook committee had distorted the history of great personalities and social reformers. “The committee does not want to accept B.R.Ambedkar as the architect of the Indian Constitution. If Dr. Ambedkar was not the head of the drafting committee, we would not have the Constitution that we have today. The people from RSS do not respect the Constitution as it guarantees equality. The RSS wants inequality so that it could continue to exploit the downtrodden people”, he said.
Stating that the government was engaged in ‘cultural terrorism’, he stressed the need for a strong movement against it. The intellectuals and writers should take leadership. The movement should remain non-political so that it would be strong, he opined.
V.P. Niranjanaradhya, educationist, said the revision of the textbooks was unconstitutional, opaque and against basic principles of democracy. The committee headed by Mr. Rohith Chakrathirtha had no order from the State Government to revise the textbooks. It had only asked the committee to submit a report on certain lessons. However, the committee removed many lessons and added a few, without giving valid reasons why they did so. Further, he said the entire process was dictatorial in nature and it was not in reference to any curriculum framework. Both the Chief Minister and Education Minister were engaged in misleading the public on the whole issue.
S.G.Siddaramaiah, writer, said the people in the State Government had ‘lost’ the moral right to recite the state anthem written by Kuvempu as they had defended Mr. Rohith Chakrathirtha who distorted the poem. The textbook revision committee distorted the history of great personalities. “They are attempting to incorporate the history they learnt in RSS shakhas in schools”, he said.
Rajendra Chenni opined that common people and parents of the schoolchildren had to take a prominent role in the protests against the revision of the textbooks. “How can parents remain silent when their children are being fed poison through textbooks? We should not expect political parties to take the leadership of this struggle. We common people should raise our voice”, he said.
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council B.K .Hariprasad said people would not tolerate insults done to social reformers of the land. “Kuvempu has been insulted. Home Minister Araga Jnanendra, representing Tirthahalli, should have resigned by now.”
Former MLA and JD(S) leader Y.S.V. Datta said the movement had begun at Kuppali, the native place of Kuvempu. It should reach nook and corners of the state.
The programme was organised by Kuvempu Vishwamanava Vedike of Tirthahalli under the leadership of former Education Minister Kimmane Ratnakar. Novelist Na. D’suoza, former Minister Ramesh Kumar, Raitha Sangha leaders K.T.Gangadhar, H.R.Basavarajappa, Dalit Sangharsha Samiti leader Gurumurthy, journalist Dinesh Amin Mattu, T.D.Raje Gowda, MLA, and others participated in the programme.
