Karnataka govt decides to remove chapters on RSS founder and Savarkar in school textbooks

The Cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of school textbooks by dropping changes that were made when the BJP was in power last year.

Changes that were made to the Kannada and Social Studies textbooks for Classes 6-10 will be undone.

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Briefing reporters, School Education & Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa said the Cabinet decided to resort to textbooks contents that were there before the BJP government made changes.

Lessons on RSS founder KB Hedgewar, Hindu nationalist Veer Savarkar and one penned by Hindutva ideologue Chakravarthy Sulibele are out. Lessons on social reformer Savitribai Phule, Constitution architect BR Ambedkar and former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru are back.

Last year, the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government had appointed a committee under Hindu right-winger Rohit Chakrathirtha to revise school textbooks, which received backlash from a wide section of Kannada authors and intellectuals who accused him of "saffronising" education. The Congress had promised to revise textbooks if it came to power.

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"Since the academic year has already begun and textbooks have been issued to students, the government will print supplementary booklets comprising the changes. The booklets will be given to all teachers as soon as possible," Madhu said. "Textbooks had reached students even before we formed the government. Hundreds of crores of rupees have been spent and we cannot now revoke them," he said, adding that the printing of the supplementary booklets would cost the government about Rs 10-12 lakh.

The supplementary booklets are based on changes recommended by a five-member expert committee that had Rajappa Dalavai, Ravish Kumar, Prof TR Chnadrashekar and Dr Ashwath Narayan and Rajesh.

"The government will, within a fortnight, constitute a committee for overall revision of the textbooks in the larger interest of students, which will come into effect from next year," Madhu added.

Preamble made mandatory

The Cabinet also decided to make it mandatory for students in all government, aided and unaided schools and colleges to read the Preamble of the Constitution every day. "This decision has been taken to emphasise the spirit of harmony, religious tolerance, and inclusiveness reflected in the Preamble," Social Welfare Minister HC Mahadevappa said. Displaying the Preamble is a must in all public offices, he added.