Mumbai: There is denigration of Hindu deities Hanuman, Sree Rama and Seeta in the book for tenth standard curriculum published by the Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board of Maharashtra for the subject, English language. The book is meant for Marathi medium syllabus. There is a lesson titled ‘Hanuman and I’ and in the beginning of the lesson, it has been mentioned that the lesson has only entertainment value.
In this lesson, it is shown that students present a short play with Hanuman having denigrating dialogues. Further through some incidents, mockery is made of Hanuman, Sree Rama and Seeta.
In the lesson ‘Hanuman and I’, a few students enact a play titled ‘Story of Rama’ in their school cultural program. At the last minute, the girl to enact the role of a monkey has to enact the role of Hanuman. The girl forgets the dialogues and without properly listening to the prompting done by a teacher from behind the screen, delivers the dialogues without understanding the meaning leading to comic situations.
While the play is going on, Hanuman hears a sentence prompted by the teacher and says to Rama that he has forgotten his tail on which Rama says that he never had a tail, in fact, Hanuman has forgotten his tail. In another incident, as the prompter tells to jump, the girl enacting the role of Hanuman hears it and repeats the sentence when Rama tells her that Hanuman is supposed to jump and not Rama. Later, the girl enacting the role of Seeta, forgets her dialogues with Hanuman and the prompter tells her, her dialogues. But Seeta does not say anything and the girl doing the role of Hanuman starts saying Seeta’s dialogues. So Hanuman says that his beauty has only betrayed him. Wicked Ravana wanted to marry him because of his beauty. There are a few more of such dialogues ridiculing the revered characters.
For protest contact
Maharashtra State Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, Shivajinagar, Pune-411 010.
Contact No.: 020- 25536236 / 25536712,
e-mail: [email protected]
Source: ‘Dainik Sanatan Prabhat’
Related HJS campaign
> Defamations: Abuse on Hinduism
