Saffron tint in school textbooks in Karnataka lingers, allege activists

BANGALORE: In its second year in power, the Congress government seems to be making half-hearted attempts to de-saffronize school textbooks in Karnataka.
According to a July 2014 report of the committee for resisting saffronization of textbooks (CRST), the government has managed to remove only a few controversial communal contents highlighted by media while it chose to ignore the overall saffron tint surrounding the school textbooks.
"Though the BJP government is out of power its ideology continues to maintain its hold over textbooks. What is more alarming is that the so-called secular Congress government has also chosen to turn a blind eye to the problem," alleged Francis D'Souza, convener of CRST and research scholar at Kuvempu University, Shimoga. Textbook reprints usually come out in July and that's when the anomalies were again noticed by the CRST.
While the most controversial passage in the class 9 Science textbook (July 2014 print) that Drona of the Mahabharata is the first test-tube baby has been removed, chapters in History of class 10 depicting Catholic churches in poor light have been retained in the reprint.
It may be recalled that controversial passages in the chapter titled 'Punyakoti' in class 8 Hindi textbooks were done when the BJP government was in power and edited out when the Congress came to power. A sentence in the chapter that reads "…. using Cow as food is a wicked thought. So I pledge that I will not eat any cows hereafter..." and which indicates that consumption of beef is immoral has been removed in the new print.
Another controversial line removed from Class 9 social science textbook read: "…Jesus died on April 7, Friday 30 AD". CRST, in its 2013 report, had alleged that this was included to suppr ess the fact that AD commenced with Christ.
Most other portions that ran into controversy, however, continue to remain. For instance, some Roman Catholic churches in Bangalore have been wrongly described as built by the British. But the objections to these have been dismissed as trivial.