Karnataka govt decides to remove chapters on RSS founder, Savarkar in school textbooks

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of Kannada and Social Science textbooks of classes 6 to 10 in the state for this academic year by removing the chapters on RSS founder K B Hedgewar and Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar among others. It has also consented to add chapters on social reformer and educator Savitribai Phule, Nehru’s letters to Indira Gandhi and poetry on Ambedkar, and do away with the changes that were brought in by the previous BJP government.

The Congress had in its poll manifesto promised to undo the changes made to school textbooks when the BJP was in power, and had also promised to scrap the National Education Policy (NEP).

“Regarding textbook revision, the Cabinet discussed the proposal brought by the department, the lesson removed and added, and the decisions to be taken, and has given its approval,” Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil said after the cabinet meeting.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa said it was Congress’s promise in the manifesto to revise the textbooks and that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has consistently given his guidance on this.

Noting that the textbooks had reached the students by the time the new government came to power, he said: “We cannot stop it; withdrawing and reprinting new textbooks would lead to loss of hundreds of crores. There is a provision of supplementary books as done in the past, so we are going for a supplementary book regarding what is to be done and what is not needed or may lead to wrong thinking. We have removed what was not required.”

The education minister said a five-member expert committee of Rajappa Dalawai, Raveesh Kumar, Prof T R Chandrashekar, Dr Ashwath Narayan, and Rajesh has worked for revising the text book for this year.