Congress Govt in Karnataka drops chapter on RSS founder, brings back Ambedkar, Nehru in textbooks

Mangalore Today News Network

Bengaluru, June 15, 2023: The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved a set of revisions to textbooks on Kannada and social science in state schools. The revisions will remove chapters on RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar while adding those on Savitribai Phule, Chakravarti Sulibele, Jawaharlal Nehru’s letters to Indira Gandhi and poetry on BR Ambedkar.

 

In short, the Congress government in Karnataka was undoing whatever changes were brought in by the previous BJP government.

Announcing the decision, Karnataka education minister Madhu Bangarappa said, "Whatever changes they [the previous BJP government] had made last year, we have simply reintroduced them, that’s all." The revisions will impact the Kannada and social science textbooks for students in Class VI to Class X.

The chapters being added will be taught, for now, as supplementary texts, since the textbooks for the academic year have already been circulated. The education minister said the textbook revision is being done at a cost of around Rs 10 to 12 lakh and that the supplementary texts will be made available to the students within ten days.

The textbook revision is in line with the Congress party’s poll manifesto for the recently held Karnataka election. In the run-up to the election, the Congress had promised to undo the changes made to school textbooks when the BJP was in power.

Karnataka law HK Patil also said the state cabinet has decided to make it compulsory to read the Preamble of the Constitution along with the regular hymns sung in schools and colleges.

During the BJP government in the state, a controversy had erupted with the opposition Congress and some writers demanded the removal of the then textbook review committee chief Rohith Chakratirtha for allegedly "saffronising" school textbooks by including the speech of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar as a chapter, and omitting chapters on key figures like freedom fighters and social reformers, and on the writings of noted literary figures.

Courtesy: India Today