Siddaramaiah wants Karnataka education minister B C Nagesh sacked over textbook row

He urged Bommai to assemble a high-level panel to prepare a report on the 'distorted' content inserted by the Rohith Chakratirtha committee

Karnataka Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Monday asked Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to sack his Primary and Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh over the revised school textbooks fiasco.

In a two-page letter to Bommai, Siddaramaiah urged the Chief Minister to put on hold the revised textbooks. The Congress leader wanted Bommai to continue with the previous version of textbooks, and, in the meanwhile, assemble a high-level panel to prepare a report on the “distorted” content inserted by the Rohith Chakratirtha committee.

“It looks like a pre-planned conspiracy that people with no faith and respect for the Constitution and for the cultural tradition of the land were picked for the committee,” Siddaramaiah said, implying that the Chakratirtha committee did not heed what the people of the state had demanded when it “retained” the “treacherous content”.

Targeting Chakratirtha, Siddaramaiah accused the government of “betraying the state's cultural heritage" by appointing a person who made "derogatory" remarks on social media against Dalits and women.

Read | Throw revised syllabus into dustbin, says Siddaramaiah

Siddaramaiah stated that the government was yet to apologise for either excluding or manipulating content on Basavanna, Narayana Guru, Ambedkar, Kuvempu, Swami Vivekananda, Savitribai Phule, and Rani Abbakka, among others in the school textbooks. He also accused BJP leaders of "mocking" seers and pontiffs who raised objections against the revised content.

Demanding a case of treason against Chakratirtha for "insulting" the state anthem, Siddaramaiah asked for Nagesh's resignation as "he is responsible for all this mess".

Congress lists out 'errors'

According to former minister Priyank Kharge, the revised textbooks are fraught with errors.

“In the Class 6 Kannada textbook, Channa Valikara's Nee Hoda Marudina poem on Ambedkar has been removed. In the Class 7 textbook on social reformers, references to Ambedkar's parents and birth have been removed. Details on the Mahad Satyagraha and Kalaram temple entry—these were historic Dalit movements—are gone," Kharge said.

"In the Class 9 textbook, not only has the reference to Ambedkar as the 'architect of the Constitution' been removed, but a new insertion suggests that BN Rau played a key role in the drafting of the Constitution," Kharge said, adding that the Class 10 textbook removes altogether the reference of Ambedkar accepting Buddhism as a protest against caste system.

According to Kharge, the Class 9 Kannada textbook no longer has Aravind Malagatti's Marali Manege poem on Buddha. "Not just that, the textbook also says that Buddhism and Jainism are sects under Hinduism."

Kharge also objected to the use of singular while referring to Buddha and Jain Tirthankaras. “Is this government so drowned in the RSS ideology that they have forgotten basic courtesy towards philosophers,” he asked.