Bangaluru – The state government has mandated 18 changes to the Kananda and Social Science courses for grades 6 through 10, only days after the Karnataka Cabinet authorised revisions to the state’s textbooks.
The Congress administration has replaced a lesson on RSS founder KB Hedgewar called “Who Should Be an Ideal Man” with a lesson on Sukumara Swamy written by Shivakotacharya for class 10 (Kannada language), according to a list of revisions made public by the Karnataka Textbook Society.
When right-wing ideologue Rohit Chakrathirtha was in charge of the textbook revision committee, the previous BJP government in the state added a lesson on Hedgewar. ‘Letter to my daughter’ by Jawaharlal Nehru, translated by Siddanahalli Krishna Sharma, was reinstated by the Congress government in the class 8 (Kannada language) textbook. ‘Bhoo Kailasa’ by Parampalli Narasimha Aithal, which has since been removed, was presented by the previous BJP administration in place of the lesson.
The BJP defended the decision to disregard Nehru’s lesson by arguing that it was more crucial to learn about how to behave in society as an ideal man (pointing to Hedgewar’s lesson) than what Nehru wrote to Indira Gandhi.
The works of other right-wing ideologues like Chakaravarthy Sulibele and Shatavadhani Ganesh have also been removed by the Congress government from the class 10 Kannada language textbook. Ganesh’s work has been replaced by novelist Sara Aboobacker’s book War, however Sulibele’s “Heroes of Mother India” has no counterpart.
Additionally, the class 8 Kannada language textbook no longer includes the poem by KT Gatti that was adopted by the previous BJP administration and features Veer Savarkar. Vijayamala Ranganath has substituted ‘Blood Group’ in its stead. Savarkar’s claim that he “flew out of his jail cell on bulbuls and visited his motherland” was made fun of in the poem.
The Congress government has included additional chapters on “Vedic Culture,” “Rise of New Religions,” “Human Rights,” “Women Social Reformers,” and “Women Freedom Fighters” to the social science textbook for class 6.
The administration claimed that these modifications were made after “subject experts” reviewed the current textbooks.
All the schools using the state government curriculum will receive the revisions, which will be written out as clarifications.
