Congress leader and former Education Minister B.K. Chandrashekar and MP L. Hanumanthaiah on Thursday hit out at the State government’s attempts at “saffronisation” of school education and claimed that Primary and Secondary Education Minister B.C Nagesh has been implementing this agenda at the behest of the Central government.
They also questioned the constitution of the textbook revision committee and alleged that it was not representative of all communities. There were no experts in the committee and only sympathisers of the BJP and the RSS have been included in the committee, they alleged. They demanded constitution of a new committee.
Mr. Chandrashekar pointed out that in 2020, the Narendra Modi-led government had reduced 30% of the syllabus. The CBSE had then instructed its schools not to teach chapters on secularism and citizenship, he said.
A total of 1,334 changes were made to 180 textbooks of the CBSE when Prakash K. Javadekar was the Union Human Resource Development Minister. The BJP leaders claimed that the Bhagavad Gita was more important than the Constitution of India. The BJP had commenced the debate on Hindu rashtra and changes in the Constitution after it came to power in 2014, the former Minister said.
Mr. Hanumanthaiah alleged that the government had insulted Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan and social reformer Narayana Guru by removing lessons on them from the syllabus or severely curtailing the content. Facts on Kannada poet Kuvempu were also allegedly distorted. A speech by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar has made its way to the revised Kannada textbook, he said.
A revision committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha, which was constituted in 2020 after the BJP came to power in the State, to examine Social Science and language textbooks, has revised Social Science and Kannada language textbooks.
The MP demanded the scrapping of the committee headed by Mr. Chakrathirtha and constitution of a new committee to revise textbooks.
