What do we expect from a language textbook?

While familiarising students with the lexicon of a language and how it operates in the real world, textbooks also have a duty to introduce the literary tradition of that language. In his open letter, Devanooru Mahadeva has rightly said that if the works of L Basavaraju, A N Murthy Rao, P Lankesh, Sara Aboobacker have been dropped, then those responsible for it have absolutely no clue about Karnataka, the Kannada language and its culture.

The merits and demerits of the inclusion of a speech of RSS founder K B Hedgewar cannot be examined without considering these deletions. Despite denying any ideological influence in the process of revision, the textbook review committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha has chosen to erase specifically voices that represent the pluralistic culture of Karnataka.

A doorway to the world

Despite growing up around Kannada books and culture, I first fell in love with poetry only when I read Gangadhara Chittala’s poem Gulmohar in my textbook. This one poem pushed me to search for more poems of Chittala.

The same goes for Devanooru Mahadeva’s Dambaru Bandudu and P Lankesh’s Avva. While the former was an entertaining take on the confluence of rural life and modernity, the latter introduced me to a mother who was unlike anyone I had seen in popular culture but like my own: dark in complexion, untamed and raw. How could I stop myself from reading more of his work!

When I first read Lankesh’s collected editorial writings in Teeke-Tippani, the experience was similar to travelling back in time. No contemporary issue escaped his editorial pen. From Francois Mitterrand to Muamar Gaddafi, he introduced a generation to foreign politics in the pre-internet era. In one of his short writings in Edege Bidda Akshara, Devanooru quips, “people used to think twice or thrice before doing something. So strong was Lankesh’s presence.” He was the conscience of Kannada society.

Children who may not hear P Lankesh’s name at home should be able to encounter this man at least in the classroom. Even if it is through a simple adaptation of Beauty and the Beast that the Chakrathirtha committee has decided to leave out. Leaving Lankesh out in a first language Kannada textbook is not only questionable, but also disrespectful to Kannada literature. How can a student say I have passed SSLC Kannada first language exam without studying Lankesh?

Values to be discarded

Sara Aboobacker’s Yuddha is a simple story about a doctor crashlanding in enemy territory. Though the story does not name the nations at war, it is clear that one side is predominantly Muslim and the other is Hindu. This chapter is framed within universal values like empathy and humanity, it questions the inevitability of war, and critiques nationalism.

A N Murthy Rao’s Vyaghra Geethe is a comment on the politics of food and the hierarchies that are created as a result of what you choose to eat. Eventually, it may prompt students to seek out the author’s writings on atheism and his most famous work, Devaru -- an argumentative work on the concept of God.

This is what language classes do: they inculcate a reading habit in children, hold a mirror to society, encourage discussion of the contemporary times. Unlike other subjects, language classes take you beyond the text. Class discussion may lead you toward new works of the same author that are much more profound.

It is not surprising if you have already found a pattern in the texts and authors that have been let go. They not only represent the best of Kannada literature, but also espouse values that are foundational to our Constitution and antithetical to the RSS agenda.

Sanskritisation of Kannada children

As someone who studied in Kannada medium till high school, I have personally experienced the Sanskrit-heavy texts, especially in Ganitha (Maths) and Vijnaana (Science) textbooks. I’m glad that there are many movements now trying to de-Sanskritise the language. But the textbook review committee is going the other way.

After removing the texts that were originally written in aadumaatu Kannada, we have two texts – Hedgewar’s Aadarsha Purusha Yaaragabeku? and Shatavadhani R Ganesh’s Shreshtha Bharatiya Chintanegalu – which do not belong in a language textbook. The latter is full of difficult Sanskrit words and talks about yajna, dhyana, purushartha, etc. I do not know why a Kannada language textbook should contain them. Kannada textbook is not for moral education. Especially morals based on brahminical ideas. That too at the cost of leaving out exceptional Kannada literary works.

Moreover, these texts are bland, preachy and do not encourage critical thinking. Instead of enjoying the lessons, children will have to rote-learn. Of course, just adding Brahmin authors does not make a textbook brahminical. But compelling children to learn by-heart chunks of text, without understanding, and forcing them to regurgitate it in the exam is what makes it brahminical. Adding texts that speak largely about inconsistent ideas based on a fundamentally supremacist ideology while discounting the material realities, struggles and endangered values of contemporary times is what makes a text brahminical.

Kannada children would rather study the texts of their own people from all corners of the state and in dialects of this land.

Problematic textbooks

There never has been a time when Kannada textbooks represented Kannada literary culture accurately. Be it Kuvempu or Basavanna, the selected works were presented devoid of their caste context and revolutionary potential. This is especially true in the case of the Vachana movement, which was presented as a spiritual movement, without the critique of casteism that was embedded in them.

Unlike the indifference and ignorance of then, the malice of today is far more dangerous. The exclusionary politics of Hindutva will eventually end up taking the same road as its European equivalents. Our education system should rescue children from that path, and not lead towards it. For that, the children of Karnataka should embrace their secular and plural, syncretic literary history. After all, the road to Nagpur is built on the shoulders of men, women and children who are ignorant of their own land.