'A Victory For Community Organizations'

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

The intense struggle over the content of Indian history in Californiatextbooks ended yesterday afternoon at 2 p.m. with the special committee of theCalifornia State Board of Education [SBE] voting unanimously to overturn amajority of contentious changes proposed by Hindu right-wing groups toCalifornia school textbooks. This decision is a victory for communityorganizations such as Friends of South Asia (FOSA), the Ambedkar Center forPeace and Justice, the Federation of Tamils on North America, and the CoalitionAgainst Communalism (CAC), who have worked diligently to ensure that ahistoricaland sectarian content proposed by Hindu right-wing groups is removed fromCalifornia textbooks. Hundreds of South Asian scholars from across the UnitedStates and nearly fifty internationally renowned Indologists had repeatedlywritten to the Board as well, protesting the changes proposed by the Hindunationalist groups.

At a public hearing on February 27th, the SBE special committee heard testimonyfrom scores of people, regarding controversial edits for 6th gradehistory-social science textbooks proposed by two Hindu Nationalist IndianAmerican groups, the Vedic Foundation (VF) and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF).These organizations have provoked outrage from a broad spectrum of South Asiancommunity groups for pushing sectarian agendas and revisionist histories whichwhitewash references to the oppression of women and Dalits (formerly known as ('untouchables'),and present Hinduism as a monotheistic religion and Aryans as indigenous toIndia, despite overwhelming scholarly evidence to the contrary.

Parents, students, working professionals, faculty, first and second generationimmigrants, and representatives of many community groups eloquently stressed theimportance of presenting children with accurate, scholarly information on allaspects of ancient Indian history. Some of the most moving testimony before theSBE came from individuals who had personally experienced caste oppression.Representatives of Dalit organizations urged the SBE to restore references toDalits and the caste system, which had been deleted from the textbooks on theHEF's and VF's recommendations. 'The caste system is the single most importantrepressive social phenomenon that has been unique to Hinduism for over 3,000years and should therefore find a place in the textbooks,' reminded Rama KrishnaBhupathi of Friends of South Asia and a Dalit himself. Speaking for theFederation of Tamils of North America, Thillai Kumaran, a concerned parent whostated his lower-caste origins during his testimony, strenuously objected to thetextbooks' suggestion that the caste system is no longer relevant in modernIndia. 'Hinduism continues to affect the social status of people in India, andhas condemned millions of Dalits as social outcasts,' he said. Hansraj Kajla,also a parent and representative of the Guru Ravi Dass Gurdwara (a Dalit group),suggested that the deletion of references to the caste system and the word 'Dalit'in the textbooks was tantamount to 'wiping out the histories of more than 160million people in India.'

The powerful and stirring testimony from Dalit groups was met with outrightdenial from the HEF and VF supporters. One speaker claimed that there was nooppression against lower castes in India and indeed it was only higher classesin India that faced discrimination due to the affirmative action programs, whileanother argued that the very fact that some Dalits had migrated to California isevidence enough that Dalits are a privileged community in India.

While supporters of the VF and HEF claimed that references to negative aspectsof Hinduism such as the caste system and the oppression of women damage theself-esteem of their children, others strongly disagreed. Speaking from herexperiences of learning about caste and gender oppression in middle school,Veena Dubal, a joint law and doctoral student at the University of California,Berkeley, explained, 'Like many of my European-American classmates whoseancestral histories could be traced to a time before women and people of colorwere given independent legal identities and allowed political participation, Iwas painfully embarrassed to read about the injustices committed in my parents'homeland. Yet it was precisely these lessons that taught me about the necessityfor universal civil liberties and human rights'.Simmy Makhijani, who alsoremembers facing racism and sexism in American classrooms while growing up,challenged the attempts by HEF and VF to sanitize Indian history. She asked, 'Myconcern is why should history be (re)written to make us feel better?'

One of the most contentious edits that received considerable attention at themeeting was one where the HEF sought to replace the original text, 'Men [inancient India] had many more rights than women' with one that read 'Men haddifferent duties (dharma) and rights than women.' The staff of the CaliforniaDepartment of Education recommended against making this edit yesterday, inkeeping with the demands of groups such as Friends of South Asia, CoalitionAgainst Communalism and others who insisted on a historical approach to ancientIndia. As Kasturi Ray, a specialist in Gender and Women's studies in UC,Berkeley, and herself a Hindu-American parent said in her letter to the Board, 'Thissentence also equates difference with what were actually systematically-deniedduties and rights based on gender. With this sentence, we lose the opportunityto understand what women really had to do (and continue to do) to win equalduties and rights.' Angana Chatterji, an Associate Professor of Anthropology atthe California Institute of Integral Studies, concurred that an accurateunderstanding of history can inspire individuals to become better citizens. Inher letter to the SBE, Chatterji observed, 'We must make distinctions between anational pride that wishes to put forward a uniform and glorifying version ofhistory and the scholarship of history, which seeks to present the complexitiesof societies. Fiction as history does not benefit Indian-American and otherCalifornia school-goers.'

Speakers at the special committee meeting also pointed out the VF and HEF haveorganizational ties to militant Hindu groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India that have been linked tolarge-scale violence against religious minorities. Others underscored thepluralistic nature of Hinduism. Shiva Mandalam challenged the Hindu EducationFoundation's claim that the Vedas constitute the source of Hinduism. PopularHinduism, as it is practiced today,' he pointed out, 'is a complex set ofpractices, which has little to do with the Vedas.' He claimed that the VF andHEF promote the views of high-caste Hindu elites 'who view culture in terms ofneat, boxed, and segregated religious categories and feel threatened bypractices that are egalitarian and tolerant of other religions.'

Raju Rajagopal, an organizer for CAC, marveled at the overwhelming communitymobilization against the VF's and HEF's campaign to insert sectarian materialinto California textbooks. He also highlighted that this controversy was notjust abstract debate but had immediate social relevance. 'Hindu right winghistorians claim that the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Kaaba in Mecca and some 1000mosques in Ahmedabad were once Hindu temples. This was clearly on the mind ofVHP/RSS rioters in 2002, when they destroyed or converted into temples over 270mosques during the massive Gujarat pogroms. Rewriting history the Hindutva way-- as suggested by many of the edits by VF/HEF -- are designed and destined tolead to more communal conflicts in India.'

The SBE is slated to make its final decisions regarding textbook adoption on itsmeeting on March 8-10, 2006.