03-04-2006, 10:32 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.indiawest.com/view.php?subaction=showfull&id=1141321805&archive=&star\
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Panel Accepts Some Textbook Edits After Compromise
By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN
Special to India-West
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Following an impassioned, emotionally charged meeting here
Feb. 27 at the California Department of Education, where hundreds of Indian
Americans presented their views in front of a Board of Education subcommittee,
the five-member panel unanimously voted to recommend adoption of staff
recommendations for edits and corrections proposed by the Hindu Education
Foundation and Austin, Texas-based Vedic Foundation for its sixth-grade
textbooks.
The staff recommendations reflect a compromise on a substantial part of the
proposed edits following a meeting Jan. 6 between Harvard Sanskrit expert and
philologist Prof. Michael Witzel and Cal State Northridge emeritus Prof. Shiva
Bajpai; on issues where they couldn't agree, the edits were rejected in favor of
the original text.
The compromise appears to have worked in some measure: Groups that have been
bitterly arguing on the issue have all expressed satisfaction, albeit qualified,
at the acceptance of the staff recommendations.
Although quite a few disgruntled HEF supporters appeared irate following the
announcement at the end of an over three-hour-long session of public comments,
several crying "Shame!" HEF organizers told India-West they were pleased that 70
percent of their changes had been accepted.
"On behalf of the Hindu community, we have done significant progress to correct
the biases and distortions in the textbooks," HEF spokesperson Khanderao Kand
told India-West. "We need to work further. There are gross inaccuracies."
Some of the recommendations in the list are inconsistent, haphazard and leave
factual errors intact, he added.
He added that HEF will continue to participate in other meetings. "Definitely we
will participate, and we will definitely present our case again and again (for
the panel) to reflect; hopefully they will realize there are some inaccuracies."
Meanwhile, Friends of South Asia, an activist group that has opposed the HEF and
VF campaign, welcomed the decision as well. "This decision is a victory for
community organizations such as Friends of South Asia, the Ambedkar Center for
Peace and Justice, the Federation of Tamils on North America, and the Coalition
Against Communalism, who have worked diligently to ensure that ahistorical and
sectarian content proposed by Hindu right-wing groups is removed from California
textbooks."
Raka Ray, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley
and chair of the university's Center for South Asia Studies, who spoke on behalf
of a number of South Asia scholars opposed to the HEF campaign, also welcomed
the recommendations.
"I think that it's crystal clear that all or the most pernicious material is
gone," she told India-West.
The public meeting Feb. 27 at the California Department of Education drew an
overflow audience of mostly Indian American supporters and opponents of HEF,
well over a few hundred, including anguished parents, activists, and a slew of
university faculty South Asia experts who were virtually unanimously critical of
the HEF campaign. They were joined by several dalit immigrants who made an
emotional appeal to reject what they saw as an HEF attempt to deny the history
of dalit oppression (I-W, Feb. 10).
HEF supporters, who came from as far as Orange County and San Fernando Valley,
included parents who spoke about how children went through traumatic experiences
at school due to negative portrayal of Hinduism and Indian history; individuals
who questioned whether it was appropriate to provide sixth-grade students with a
negative and in their view inaccurate idea of Hindus and Indian history; some
questioned why Hinduism was singled out for negative portrayal when other
religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam were treated with more
sensitivity. One HEF supporter said if dalits were so oppressed, how come they
had come to the U.S.?
HEF critics included university faculty, many of Indian descent, who questioned
the claim of HEF to represent all Hindus; several speakers who were raised in
the U.S. acknowledged that it was difficult for them as Hindus to learn about
past history of oppression but passionately defended teaching factual history,
warts and all, for a proper appreciation of historical and social reality.
Critics dismissed the HEF campaign as one driven by the sectarian agenda of the
Sangh Parivar, a term commonly used to describe the Hindu nationalist
triumvirate of India's Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. (The HEF is affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak
Sangh, a sister organization of the RSS.)
Ruth Green, a member of the panel who conducted the meeting, was diplomatic but
firm. "I appreciate the diversity of opinion," she told the audience. However,
she stressed that what the panel took into consideration was the difference in
scholarly opinion.
South Asia scholars present at the meeting, though, were uniformly opposed to
the HEF campaign, and HEF critics say this is true for academia in the U.S. In a
letter to the Board of Education, Vinay Lal, a history professor at the
University of California at Los Angeles, wrote: "As far as I am aware, the Hindu
Education Foundation and Vedic Foundation and their supporters do not number
among their ranks any academic specialists in Indian history or religion other
than Professor Bajpai himself. It is a remarkable fact that, in a state which
has perhaps the leading public research university system in the United States,
these two foundations could not find a single professor of Indian history or
religion within the UC system (with its ten campuses) to support their views.
Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that they would be hard pressed to
find a single scholar at any research university in the United States who would
support their views."
HEF, on the other hand, is "unhappy about process violations and a suppression
of a pending list of changes from Vedic Foundation," it said in a press release.
"A better approach to deal with the issues related to Hinduism would have been
to form an independent committee of recognized Hindu scholars representing the
faith."
It particularly questioned the appointment of Witzel on an expert panel to make
recommendations. It was a letter from HEF critic Witzel, supported by over 40
South Asian experts, that caused the state board to revisit an earlier decision
to accept the bulk of HEF recommendations. "It's like appointing the accuser as
the prosecutor, judge and jury," HEF's Kand told India-West.
In its press release, HEF also said that "the subcommittee responded in a very
farcical manner to this lengthy debate. After the public hearing, without any
deliberations, within a few minutes, the subcommittee confirmed all the staff
recommendations."
Witzel, however, said that the issue was one of historical accuracy.
"Rationality has triumphed," he told India-West. "All the ahistorical
foundations of the two foundations have been taken out. Historical accuracy has
prevailed over mythological ideas of history."
He pointed to several areas of concern: The position of women, the caste system,
the political conditions of dalits, god with a capital G, the question of
monotheism and polytheism, and the issue of Aryan migration.
"If you would really go around the world, not just the country, and see what
scholars think, then they would strongly come down on the unequal position of
men and women, also other cultures, by the way-a description of Rome, almost
word by word, (in a textbook) is very similar to India."
On the Aryan migration theory, a bitter bone of contention between HEF
supporters and critics, the staff recommendations appear to walk a middle path.
While it refused to concur with the outright rejection of the theory by HEF
supporters, it leaves references to Aryan arrival somewhat vague.
For example, HEF had suggested substituting the following text: "In the years
that followed, a group of people called the Aryans began settling in the region.
Soon a new civilization emerged."
It suggested the following text: "In the years that followed, a group of people
called the Aryans from other regions in India began settling in the region,
enriching the Harappan civilization."
The staff accepted the HEF edit, but removed "in India" from the revised text.
UC Berkeley's Raka Ray said she understood "the concern the parents naturally
have when your child is minority, about the child being made fun of. I have
considerable sympathy for that position. I just think that historical accuracy
ultimately has to count for more."
The State Board of Education is slated to make its final decisions regarding the
textbook adoption at its meeting on March 8-10.
The panel considered 126 pages of edits and corrections, nine proposed textbook
submissions, and between 1,500-2,000 pages of letters and e-mails, Glee Johnson,
president of the State Board of Education, told India-West. The debate on Indian
history was a part of these deliberations. "Religious neutrality, historical
accuracy, and that represents the plurality of interests that have come to the
table" were the guiding principles for the panel, she added.
The complete PDF document listing the HEF edits and staff recommendations is
available at this Web link (HEF and VF discussion begins on Page 93)
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/documents/h...ice022706a1.pdf.
More information is available at the following Web sites: Hindu Education
Foundation (www.hindueducation.org), Friends of South Asia
(www.friendsofsouthasia.org),
South Asia Faculty Network (http://southasiafaculty.net).
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Panel Accepts Some Textbook Edits After Compromise
By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN
Special to India-West
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Following an impassioned, emotionally charged meeting here
Feb. 27 at the California Department of Education, where hundreds of Indian
Americans presented their views in front of a Board of Education subcommittee,
the five-member panel unanimously voted to recommend adoption of staff
recommendations for edits and corrections proposed by the Hindu Education
Foundation and Austin, Texas-based Vedic Foundation for its sixth-grade
textbooks.
The staff recommendations reflect a compromise on a substantial part of the
proposed edits following a meeting Jan. 6 between Harvard Sanskrit expert and
philologist Prof. Michael Witzel and Cal State Northridge emeritus Prof. Shiva
Bajpai; on issues where they couldn't agree, the edits were rejected in favor of
the original text.
The compromise appears to have worked in some measure: Groups that have been
bitterly arguing on the issue have all expressed satisfaction, albeit qualified,
at the acceptance of the staff recommendations.
Although quite a few disgruntled HEF supporters appeared irate following the
announcement at the end of an over three-hour-long session of public comments,
several crying "Shame!" HEF organizers told India-West they were pleased that 70
percent of their changes had been accepted.
"On behalf of the Hindu community, we have done significant progress to correct
the biases and distortions in the textbooks," HEF spokesperson Khanderao Kand
told India-West. "We need to work further. There are gross inaccuracies."
Some of the recommendations in the list are inconsistent, haphazard and leave
factual errors intact, he added.
He added that HEF will continue to participate in other meetings. "Definitely we
will participate, and we will definitely present our case again and again (for
the panel) to reflect; hopefully they will realize there are some inaccuracies."
Meanwhile, Friends of South Asia, an activist group that has opposed the HEF and
VF campaign, welcomed the decision as well. "This decision is a victory for
community organizations such as Friends of South Asia, the Ambedkar Center for
Peace and Justice, the Federation of Tamils on North America, and the Coalition
Against Communalism, who have worked diligently to ensure that ahistorical and
sectarian content proposed by Hindu right-wing groups is removed from California
textbooks."
Raka Ray, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley
and chair of the university's Center for South Asia Studies, who spoke on behalf
of a number of South Asia scholars opposed to the HEF campaign, also welcomed
the recommendations.
"I think that it's crystal clear that all or the most pernicious material is
gone," she told India-West.
The public meeting Feb. 27 at the California Department of Education drew an
overflow audience of mostly Indian American supporters and opponents of HEF,
well over a few hundred, including anguished parents, activists, and a slew of
university faculty South Asia experts who were virtually unanimously critical of
the HEF campaign. They were joined by several dalit immigrants who made an
emotional appeal to reject what they saw as an HEF attempt to deny the history
of dalit oppression (I-W, Feb. 10).
HEF supporters, who came from as far as Orange County and San Fernando Valley,
included parents who spoke about how children went through traumatic experiences
at school due to negative portrayal of Hinduism and Indian history; individuals
who questioned whether it was appropriate to provide sixth-grade students with a
negative and in their view inaccurate idea of Hindus and Indian history; some
questioned why Hinduism was singled out for negative portrayal when other
religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam were treated with more
sensitivity. One HEF supporter said if dalits were so oppressed, how come they
had come to the U.S.?
HEF critics included university faculty, many of Indian descent, who questioned
the claim of HEF to represent all Hindus; several speakers who were raised in
the U.S. acknowledged that it was difficult for them as Hindus to learn about
past history of oppression but passionately defended teaching factual history,
warts and all, for a proper appreciation of historical and social reality.
Critics dismissed the HEF campaign as one driven by the sectarian agenda of the
Sangh Parivar, a term commonly used to describe the Hindu nationalist
triumvirate of India's Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. (The HEF is affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak
Sangh, a sister organization of the RSS.)
Ruth Green, a member of the panel who conducted the meeting, was diplomatic but
firm. "I appreciate the diversity of opinion," she told the audience. However,
she stressed that what the panel took into consideration was the difference in
scholarly opinion.
South Asia scholars present at the meeting, though, were uniformly opposed to
the HEF campaign, and HEF critics say this is true for academia in the U.S. In a
letter to the Board of Education, Vinay Lal, a history professor at the
University of California at Los Angeles, wrote: "As far as I am aware, the Hindu
Education Foundation and Vedic Foundation and their supporters do not number
among their ranks any academic specialists in Indian history or religion other
than Professor Bajpai himself. It is a remarkable fact that, in a state which
has perhaps the leading public research university system in the United States,
these two foundations could not find a single professor of Indian history or
religion within the UC system (with its ten campuses) to support their views.
Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that they would be hard pressed to
find a single scholar at any research university in the United States who would
support their views."
HEF, on the other hand, is "unhappy about process violations and a suppression
of a pending list of changes from Vedic Foundation," it said in a press release.
"A better approach to deal with the issues related to Hinduism would have been
to form an independent committee of recognized Hindu scholars representing the
faith."
It particularly questioned the appointment of Witzel on an expert panel to make
recommendations. It was a letter from HEF critic Witzel, supported by over 40
South Asian experts, that caused the state board to revisit an earlier decision
to accept the bulk of HEF recommendations. "It's like appointing the accuser as
the prosecutor, judge and jury," HEF's Kand told India-West.
In its press release, HEF also said that "the subcommittee responded in a very
farcical manner to this lengthy debate. After the public hearing, without any
deliberations, within a few minutes, the subcommittee confirmed all the staff
recommendations."
Witzel, however, said that the issue was one of historical accuracy.
"Rationality has triumphed," he told India-West. "All the ahistorical
foundations of the two foundations have been taken out. Historical accuracy has
prevailed over mythological ideas of history."
He pointed to several areas of concern: The position of women, the caste system,
the political conditions of dalits, god with a capital G, the question of
monotheism and polytheism, and the issue of Aryan migration.
"If you would really go around the world, not just the country, and see what
scholars think, then they would strongly come down on the unequal position of
men and women, also other cultures, by the way-a description of Rome, almost
word by word, (in a textbook) is very similar to India."
On the Aryan migration theory, a bitter bone of contention between HEF
supporters and critics, the staff recommendations appear to walk a middle path.
While it refused to concur with the outright rejection of the theory by HEF
supporters, it leaves references to Aryan arrival somewhat vague.
For example, HEF had suggested substituting the following text: "In the years
that followed, a group of people called the Aryans began settling in the region.
Soon a new civilization emerged."
It suggested the following text: "In the years that followed, a group of people
called the Aryans from other regions in India began settling in the region,
enriching the Harappan civilization."
The staff accepted the HEF edit, but removed "in India" from the revised text.
UC Berkeley's Raka Ray said she understood "the concern the parents naturally
have when your child is minority, about the child being made fun of. I have
considerable sympathy for that position. I just think that historical accuracy
ultimately has to count for more."
The State Board of Education is slated to make its final decisions regarding the
textbook adoption at its meeting on March 8-10.
The panel considered 126 pages of edits and corrections, nine proposed textbook
submissions, and between 1,500-2,000 pages of letters and e-mails, Glee Johnson,
president of the State Board of Education, told India-West. The debate on Indian
history was a part of these deliberations. "Religious neutrality, historical
accuracy, and that represents the plurality of interests that have come to the
table" were the guiding principles for the panel, she added.
The complete PDF document listing the HEF edits and staff recommendations is
available at this Web link (HEF and VF discussion begins on Page 93)
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/documents/h...ice022706a1.pdf.
More information is available at the following Web sites: Hindu Education
Foundation (www.hindueducation.org), Friends of South Asia
(www.friendsofsouthasia.org),
South Asia Faculty Network (http://southasiafaculty.net).
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