Saffronization of text books in India condemned

(September 17, 2012) Nearly 1,500 secular thinkers and teachers have condemned what they alleged was the gradual process ‘saffronization’ or ‘Hinduization’ of school textbooks in southern India’s Karnataka state. The participants from all major religions in the country attended a day-long seminar in Mangalore on Sunday on the theme “saffronization of text books and subaltern voice”. Rosy D’Souza, a teacher and a participant at the seminar said that saffronisation is a gradual poison that makes Hindu children feel superior and Muslim and Christian children inferior. The education department of the state government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, has introduced the new history and social science text books for 5th and 8th grades, with other classes to follow next year. Father J. B. Crasta, a Catholic priest, complained that the new textbooks are distorting history teaching children that churches in India, especially in Karnataka, were built by the British; whereas they were built by Christians as expression of their faith. Indudara Honnapura, a journalist, lamented that instead of curing untouchability, which is the biggest cancer of Hinduism, the state government was making children the victims of their experimentation of saffronizing the textbooks.