It is <i > déjà vu</i> time for battle-scarred scholars of Indian history, who have scarcely recovered from their long and bitter fight against the "saffronization" of textbooks in India. Only, the new battleground is far-away California.
The State of California reviews its textbooks every six years, but does notpublish its own books, which is left to private publishers. The State Board ofEducation (Board), however, provides the overall curriculum framework, with theCurriculum Commission as its public advisory body. The review process is guidedby the California Education Code, which, among other things, specifies that
"no instructional materials shall be adopted… which…contains:
(a) Any matter reflecting adversely upon persons because of their race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, or occupation," and
"(b) Any sectarian or denomination doctrine or propaganda contrary to law."
The public may suggest corrections to the texts during the review process,but not rewrites. This year, it was the turn of the History-Social Sciencebooks, which contain passages on ancient India and Hinduism and were put up forpublic comments starting April 2005.
Two Hindutva organizations, the Vedic Foundation of Austin, Texas (VF), whichis closely linked to VHP, and the Hindu Education Foundation of California (HEF),a project of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (U.S. version of RSS), immediately seizedthe opportunity to suggest extensive rewrites of the text dealing with India,invoking part (a) of the code section cited above to argue that any negativeportrayal of Hinduism reflects adversely on Hindu children’s pride in anAmerican classroom.
Supporting their argument were a few egregious passages from the texts, whichwere widely circulated among Indian-Americans: e.g. "The Brahmins sometimesmade fun of the Dasa and said that they spoke as if they had no noses. (Pinchyour nose and see what you would sound like.)" Many parents wereunderstandably upset about such inanity and supported the initiative to cleanseschoolbooks of stereotypes.
Most parents were not told, however, that instances of such offensiveportrayals and inaccuracies (e.g. "Hindi is written with the Arabic alphabet")constituted only a tiny part of the changes sought by VF and HEF (5 to 7 out of153 edits), and that the most offensive ones involved just one publisher.
Orchestrating the VF and HEF’s campaign from behind the scenes wereself-styled Hindutva historians like Dr. N.S. Rajaram, Dr. David Frawley, andDr. S. Kalyanaraman -- none of whom, incidentally, lives in California -- whosefanciful theories and questionable research methods had found no takers amongscholars of South Asia. As Prof. Vinay Lal, Associate Professor ofHistory at UCLA recently wrote to the Board,
"As far as I am aware, the Hindu Education Foundation and Vedic Foundation and their supporters do not number among their ranks any academic specialists in Indian history or religion other than Professor Bajpai himself. It is a remarkable fact that, in a state which has perhaps the leading public research university system in the United States, these two foundations could not find a single professor of Indian history or religion within the UC system (with its ten campuses) to support their views."
And, who is Prof. Shiva G. Bajpai? Listed as a Professor of History and aDirector of The Center for Sex Research at California State University,Northridge, he was appointed sometime in September 2005 as an advisor to theAd-Hoc Committee formed by the Curriculum Commission to review the editsproposed by VF and HEF. He had apparently been recommended by VF as a "renownedIndologist" and was brought on board as an independent scholar. But, as itturns out, he is a founder-member of World Association for Vedic Studies(WAVES), which subscribes to many of the same views as VF and HEF and evenshares some of the same advisors. Not surprisingly, he uncritically acceptedmost of their suggestions, despite the fact that some of them may be inviolation of part (b) of the code section cited above against the introductionof sectarian doctrines and propaganda.
In an urgent letter to the Board, dated November 8, 2005, endorsed byforty-six Indologists from around the world, Prof. Witzel warned that the "proposedrevisions are not of a scholarly but of a religious-political nature and areprimarily promoted by Hindutva supporters and non-specialist academics writingabout issues far outside their area of expertise." His position wassubsequently supported by over one hundred and forty academics, many of themSouth Asians who had personally witnessed the NCERT fiasco in India.
In reaction to Prof. Witzel’s letter, the Board appointed a three memberContent Review Panel (CRP) consisting of Prof. Witzel, Prof. James Heitzman (UCDavis), and Prof. Stanley Wolpert (UCLA) to review the edits approved by Prof.Bajpai. The CRP readily agreed that the few instances of offensive passagesought to be dropped, but, for the most part, they strongly objected to attemptsby VF and HEF to distort the caste system, women’s status, and the origin ofthe Aryans.
Notwithstanding the CRP’s intervention, the full Curriculum Commission,under intense pressure from Hindutva supporters, voted on December 2, 2005 toaccept most of the edits passed by Prof. Bajpai. The matter is now back in thehands of the Board, which has the ultimate authority to decide what goes intothe textbooks, and which has appointed a five-member sub-committee to bringclosure to the matter. No firm timeline has been announced.
Since the Board meeting of January 12th, 2006, thesegroups have been challenging VF and HEF’s key assertion that teaching basicfacts about caste and women’s status in ancient India is somehow inimical toHindu pride. They point out that California curriculum requires coverage of theHolocaust, slavery, genocides and human rights, and that no one has argued thatthese topics impinge on the pride of German, White, or Turkish children in aclass room. Dalits groups argue that erasing all references to them, andsuggesting that caste status was based on people’s capacity, is an affront totheir self respect, and must not be allowed to stand. They are particularlyincensed by the assertion that they were called "untouchables" becausethey did dirty work, rather than the other way around, as copiouslydocumented in the scriptures.
A slanderous petition against Prof. Witzel, lead by Hindtuva "scholars"like Dr. N.S. Rajaram, calling on Harvard University to dismantle the SanskritDepartment, has been making the cyber rounds. In addition to numerousmisstatements, the petition also includes outright fabrications, for e.g., aclaim that Prof Witzel had denigrated Hindus by writing that "IndianCivilization would be a good idea." His actual post on the Indo-Eurasian research yahoogroup, which he moderates, had said: "It was forwarded to usfrom a Yahoo list, called ‘Indian Civilization’, which to quote Gandhi,would indeed be a good idea! Only, that little civilization but endlesschauvinistic ranting is found on that Yahoo group."
As the fight against "saffronization" of history shifts to the diaspora,the enormous implications of the California Board’s decision upon schoolbooksin other states, as well as upon the future of History curriculum in India, isjust beginning to dawn on concerned historians and teachers. But no one iswilling at this point to predict what the Board might do. Regardless of thefinal outcome, however, one thing seems clear: the Sangh Parivar may havecommitted a strategic blunder in giving its opponents a major opening to alertmainstream America about its dangerous ideology -- something that even the 2002Gujarat pogroms had failed to accomplish.
Raju Rajagopal is with the Coalition Against Communalism (CAC)