A group of traditional India-bashers (e.g. Michael Witzel), non-scholars (e.g., astrophysicist Rajesh Kocchar[1]), Indian Marxists (e.g., D N Jha, Romila Thapar), non-specialists in ancient India (e.g. Sudha Shenoy, Homi Bhabha), scholars alleged to have demonstrated Eurocentric bias in the past (e.g., M Tosi[2] of Italy) and obscure linguists wrote an arrogant and pompous letter (on Harvard University letterhead, signed by Michael Witzel with endorsing
signatures from 46 other ‘scholars’) to the State Board, addressing themselves as �all equally famous world class specialists� on ancient Indian history. The letter alleged that all these Hindu groups proposing edits in the textbooks under review were dangerous Hindu nationalists who were somehow connected with the slaughter of 1000 people in Gujarat, and whose friends in India routinely discriminate against millions of Indian minority members and Dalits!
We state here some of the derogatory content within these text books and supported by Indian Marxists, so that our readers become aware of the heinous propagandism happening against Hinduism.
Some examples of derogatory content!
TEXTBOOK1: The Ancient South Asian World’ authored by two scholars including the renowned Harappan archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
Page 87: �The monkey king Hanuman loved Rama so much that it is said that he is present every time the Ramayana is told. So look around�see any monkeys?�
COMMENT: Hanuman is not the monkey ‘king’. The king was Sugriva. Students in class might use such an exercise to tease or ridicule their Hindu class mates and call them monkeys. The text has many more such frivolous statements. This statement is derogatory to the Deity Status of Lord Hanumaan and is an insult to the Religious Sentiments of millions of Hindus who visit Temples of Lord Hanuman and worship him.
The book abounds in many such statements that are erroneous or could promote prejudice. Thus, on page 155, it is said that ��most Nepalese are Buddhist� when in reality almost 80% people of Nepal are Hindus. Likewise, on page 157, the festival of
Onam is confused with Diwali in the following description- �But in southern India, Divali is the time for worshipping a demon king. According to local traditions, Vishnu conquered the local demon king Bali, and then banished him from his kingdom forever in the netherworld. Bali begged Vishnu.��especially new clothes.�
�However, Hinduism also taught that women were inferior to men. As a result, Hindu women were not allowed to read the Vedas or other sacred texts�.
COMMENT: No such remarks are made for any other culture or religion in the textbooks and Hinduism is unfairly singled out and judged per modern standards, using ideals that have not been realized even in contemporary societies. It is questionable that women could not read the Vedas in the entire period of ancient India that this textbook covers. More than 20 sages of the Rigveda alone are women, the entire 14th book of Atharvaveda is attributed to a woman sage. Sulabha is even said to have been the Sage of a recension (shakha) of Rigveda and quotations from her lost ‘Saulabha Brahmana’ exist in extant works. It is beyond the scope of the present article to refute the mono-lateral statement in the text. Even the most misogynist of Hindu lawgivers permitted women to read Puranas, Mahabharata and many other Hindu texts. And yet, when Hindu groups in California ask the regional board of education to harmonize the description of women rights in ancient India with similar descriptions given for Judeo-Christian and Islamic societies, they are called dangerous ‘Hindu Nationalists’ by Romila Thapar and her ilk.
TEXTBOOK 3 : ‘Ancient Civilization’ by Harcourt School Publishers.
This text starts the description of ancient India by a ridiculous claim (page 364) that �Hindi is written with the Arabic alphabet, which uses 18 letters that stand for sounds� when in fact everyone knows that Hindi is written in the Devanagari script which can have 46-52 letters depending on whether the script is employed for Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit or other languages that use this script. The textbook even gives ‘A.D. 9’ as the exact year in which Hindi developed!
Textbook VII: �History Alive� published by Teachers’ Curriculum Institute.
Overall, this is a very good textbook, but still retains a few errors similar to the ones present in other textbooks. Thus, on page 134-135, the text elaborates the reasons for rejecting the Aryan Invasion Theory, but on page 144, it goes on to add nevertheless: �Around 1500 BCE invaders called Aryans conquered northern India. Others believe that traces of Hinduism can be found in ancient artifacts left by India’s original settlers�.Most likely, Hinduism is a blend of Aryan beliefs and the beliefs of the people they conquered�.
On page 148, it is stated that �To recite them orally, the Brahmins had to memorize more than 100,000 verses!�. In reality, most Brahmins memorized one Veda, and all the Vedas put together have less than 30,000 verses anyway.
Page 167 states that the Gupta period is famous for its illustrated manuscripts (??) and then erroneously refers to Palm-Leaf books from 550 CE when in fact such manuscripts from the Gupta period do not survive. Likewise, on page 172, the books says: �The Gupta Empire is famous for its beautiful paintings�.Perhaps the greatest ancient Indian paintings are those known as the Ajanta cave murals�. The truth is that Ajanta paintings lie in a region that was outside the Gupta Empire.
Chapter XV of this book deals with Hinduism, and missing again are discussions on the liberating yogas (jnanayoga etc.) in Hindu theology, ashrama system, purusharthas and so on. However, the description of Buddhism in the text is by and large very accurate and comprehensive.
The main question which needs to be answered here is whether these mistakes have been purposely introduced or are in fact representatives of the real lack of knowledge or awareness about Hinduism.
A typical lacuna in most textbooks is inadequate discussion of the tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism (whereas considerable space is given to the theology of Abrahamic faiths). In the discussion of Hinduism, most texts leave out the system of purusharthas (goals of human life), ashramas (stages of human life, or modes of living), liberating yogas (Bhaktiyoga, Karmayoga, Jnanayoga, Rajayoga) and other schools of Hindu philosophy. Many texts enumerate even the four noble truths and the eightfold-path of Buddha incorrectly. Jainism is typically dismissed with a brief description � one text actually devotes just 1 sentence to this religion.
Buddhism is typically represented as an advance or an improvement over Hinduism even though the California State education policy guidelines clearly mention that one tradition cannot be privileged over another. As an example, the textbooks do not present Islam as an improvement over Christianity, nor do they describe Christianity as an advance over Judaism.
There is an incessant and even anachronistic dwelling on the negatives of Hinduism, which seems to have been singled out as a religion for unfair treatment, when one reads the contrasting more balanced, even glowing narratives about Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) in these and corresponding texts from other grades. Hindu sacred narratives are referred to as stories or myths, whereas Biblical and Koranic narratives are presented as historical facts. Most textbooks also describe the subtle Karma and rebirth related principles of Indic faiths in a minimal and essentially caricaturist manner (�according to this theory, if you do bad deeds, you will be reborn as an insect�). Although it would be anachronistic to mention and discuss Sikhism in the discussion of ancient India (although Kenoyer’s text on ancient South Asia reviewed above does not hesitate to discuss Islam!), one would expect that some space would be given to Sikh heritage in textbooks on medieval and modern periods. Unfortunately, this is not the case even though California is home to perhaps 200,000 or more Sikhs. Whereas the Abrahamic religions are predominantly described from an ‘insider’s’ (emic) perspective, Hinduism is described from an outsider’s (etic) perspective. The misuse of AIT and its euphemistic versions to discuss the origins of Hinduism is a case in the point.
What Should we do:
I urge concerned readers to write to the following members of the California State Board of Education to voice their opposition to the attempts by Michael Witzel, Romila Thapars et al to overturn the corrections proposed by Hindu Americans �
Address to: Secretary Alan Bersin, CA Secretary of Education
Email: [email protected]
Fax: (916) 323-3753
Address to: Karen Steentofte, Chief Counsel, State Board of Education
Email: [email protected]
Fax: (916) 319-0176
Address to: Ruth Green, President and State Board of Education Members
Fax: (916) 319-0176
No email available.
Address to: Sue Stickel, Deputy Superintendent of Schools
Email: [email protected]
Address to: Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg
Email: [email protected]
Fax: (916) 319-2145
Get yourself counted, so that prejudiced ideologues masquerading as scholars do not get the last word.
