Revision of state’s textbooks has often lent itself to charges of revisionism

The controversy over the revision of textbooks in the state by a committee led by Rohith Chakrathirtha has created a storm in the education and political sectors, with allegations of saffronisation, revisionism and errors.

But previous attempts at revising the textbooks were no smooth exercises either, attracting criticism that there were distortions and mistakes in the new books.

The textbooks revised by the Mudambadithaya and Baraguru Ramachandrappa committees are cases in point.

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The textbooks were taken up for revision after a long gap in 2009-10 during the BJP regime when Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri, the current speaker of the Assembly, was the primary and secondary education minister.

That year, the revision was taken up based on the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005.

Speaking to DH, Kageri said that he decided to revise the textbooks as the books were not revised for a long time.

“We took up the task as there was a guideline from the NCERT. We revised the textbooks by doing research and there was no political agenda behind the revision,” he said.

However, the allegation of ‘saffronisation’ of textbooks erupted soon after the books were printed and reached the schools in 2012.

The Congress, which came to power subsequently, started alleging that the BJP government had saffronised the textbooks.

One major complaint was in reference to Dronacharya of Mahabharata as the ‘first test tube baby born 7,500 years ago,’ in the class 9 science textbook.

Following the allegations, the then chief minister Siddaramaiah decided to appoint Prof Baraguru Ramachandrappa to remove the alleged ‘saffronised’ parts from the textbooks.

Even the books revised by the Baraguru committee and implemented in 2017-18 were criticised.

The controversy reached its zenith after BJP members filed a petition before the High Court against the revisions.

The textbooks revised under Baraguru had factual errors too. For e.g., a chapter in a physical education textbook, where the answer to a question on badminton champion P V Sindhu - who won a silver medal in the Rio Olympics 2016 - said she won bronze.

Also Read: Now, Karnataka BJP lawmakers speak out against new textbooks

Even the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) had communicated to the state to put the textbooks revised by the Baraguru committee on hold, following these errors.

Tanveer Sait, during whose tenure as primary and secondary education minister the books revised by Baraguru were printed, said the government should allow the Karnataka Textbook Society to work independently.

“The textbooks should be free from political interference and ideology,” said Sait. There was also an allegation against the Baraguru committee that it used to bypass the education minister and brief the chief minister directly on the revisions made.

This had prompted Sait to issue a statement on the floor of the Assembly that the report was not submitted to him.

“During my term, whenever I had to make a decision, I was firm. I also implemented NCERT textbooks for class 6 to 12, without allowing any interference,” he said.

Now, the errors introduced by the Rohith Chakrathirtha committee have created a controversy with allegations and objections.

His name for the post of the committee chief was recommended by then minister for primary and secondary education S Suresh Kumar and the committee was constituted by current minister B C Nagesh.

Academicians feel that the revision of textbooks is always an attempt to politicise and to impose ideology.

“In the recent past, whenever a new government came to power, they tried to impose their ideology through the textbooks, which is unconstitutional. The textbooks must be revised as per the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and the mandate for NCF has been released recently,” said a senior academician on condition of anonymity.

V P Niranjanaradhya, a noted academic, said, “In the current process, the chairperson was asked to examine the contents of page 82 and 83 of class 6 social science textbook and to submit a report. This report further needs to be examined by another expert committee. Much against this mandate, he had revised the language textbooks from class 1 to 10, the environment science textbooks for class 2 and 3 and the social sciences textbooks from class 6 to 10. This was endorsed post-revision.”