A seminar on the topic ‘Saffronisation of textbooks and subaltern voice’ was held at Loyola Hall in Mangalore on Sunday to ponder over the effects of “saffronisation” of school textbooks.
Speaking on the occasion Shivasundar, a human rights activist, traced the explosion of Hindutva content in textbooks to the prejudices induced into the National Curriculum Framework in 2000 when the BJP-led NDA was in power at the Centre. He regretted distortion of Muslim and Christian histories and exclusion of dalit perspective which he believed has led to “ghettoisation of children’s mind”.
Mr. Shivasundar opined that presenting Muslims as invaders and Christians as converters in the textbooks can prejudice a child’s mind. “They have filled the textbooks with lies, making it wicked and damaging. Non-Hindus are shown as being from outside the State while Hindu iconography such as Goddess Bhuvaneshwari was used as symbols of Kannada.” He said.
He slammed the deliberate omission of dalit history and exclusion of contributions of Islamic rulers in these textbooks.
Besides Shivasundar, progressive thinkers like Indudhara Honnapura, Editor of Samvada Patrike, K.L. Ashok, State general secretary of Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike also spoke at the one-day seminar and underlined the disappearance of minority, gender, adivasi, and tribal perspectives from textbooks.