Karnataka: BJP youth wing protests against education minister over textbook revisions

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Yuva Morcha workers on Wednesday held a protest against the state education minister Madhu Bangarappa, for removing chapters on Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar and RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, while he was holding a meeting with officials in Shivamogga, people familiar with the matter said.

The BJP workers, wearing black bands and clothes, stormed into the Zilla Panchayat office where the education minister was holding a meeting, and raised slogans against Bangarappa and the Congress government.

Bangarappa, who is also the Shivamogga district in-charge minister, had called a meeting of the officials at the Zilla panchayat office to review the rain-related damage in the district.

The protesters raised slogan in favour of Savarkar and Hedgewar, causing ruckus in the meeting hall. Meanwhile, Shivamogga superintendent of police (SP) GK Mithun Kumar along with other police personnel, took them away from the hall and detained them, according to officials.

In an effort to rectify the alleged distortion of history and altercation of textbooks by the previous BJP government, the Karnataka cabinet in June, had approved the revision of Social Science and Kannada textbooks for classes 6 to 10 in state schools.

Some of the key omissions include chapters on Savarkar, RSS founder KB Hedgeewar, right-wing ideologue Chakravarthy Sulibele, Sanskrit and Kannada scholar Bannanje Govindacharya, among others.

Meanwhile, chapters on educationist Savitribai Phule, India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s letter to his daughter Indira Gandhi, and a poem on BR Ambedkar, which were removed last year, were restored. The government also made it mandatory for all schools to hold reading of the Preamble of the Constitution.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka Text Books Society (KTBS) published 140 pages of corrigendum of the revision of Social Science and Kannada textbooks.

In response to the protest by the BJP Yuva Morcha workers, Bangarappa asked them to read the textbook before holding demonstrations. “No one is more stupid than the BJP. Let them read the textbook first. I read their pamphlet alleging that all the freedom fighters have been removed from the textbooks. They should read the textbook first,” Bangarappa said.

“Just because someone holds a black flag, he doesn’t become a freedom fighter. I can’t respond to those who are stupid and irritated after defeat (in the election). We have revised the textbooks in the interest of their children,” he added.