Author: Viji Sundaram
Publication: New America Media
Date: January 10, 2006
URL: http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=40201e50a88ae6ca289796f9e5d1396f
Editor's Note: The subject of world religions
and how they are depicted in California textbooks is no longer a distant issue.
Earlier this month, Hindu groups faced off with prominent U.S. religious scholars
over what many Hindus felt were inaccurate portrayals of their community.
Accuracy matters, the writer contends, especially when the faith being discussed
is not just lodged in history, but also being practiced by some of the children
in today's California classrooms.
Earlier this month, the arm of California's
Board of Education that decides what will and won't go into the history textbooks
of millions of students was persuaded by followers of Hinduism and Judaism
to correct what the groups felt were historical inaccuracies pertaining to
their religion and culture.
What the Hindus and Jews were demanding had
nothing to do with evolution or intelligent design. They were asking that
the books accurately and fairly portray their religions and histories. But
the request to make the changes was met with antagonism by a group of prominent
religious scholars. The group, led by Harvard Sanskrit scholar Michael Witzel,
filed a petition against the changes, claiming they had more to do with religious
fanaticism on the part of the groups than with accuracy.
Many Hindu groups and parents in California
were understandably upset -- Witzel unfairly branded them as extremists. But
he doesn't have to worry about his child coming home from school and declaring
that he no longer wants to be a Hindu because his classmates ridiculed him
about something taught in class that day. That recently happened to one Milpitas,
Calif., parent of an 11-year-old.
Parents are justified in being upset when
textbooks claim that such Hindu rituals as walking on a bed of hot coals or
lying on a bed of nails to gain spiritual mastery are still practiced in India.
In fact they are rarely practiced; when they are, it's mostly to entertain
tourists.
A similar argument was raised by the Jewish
community at a December meeting of the Curriculum Commission, which was charged
by the California Board of Education with democratically deciding what should
and should not be included in the social studies and history textbooks of
California's half a million sixth-graders. Why, asked Jackie Berman, a representative
of the Jewish Community Relations Council, should the story of the crucifixion
of Jesus be told in sixth-grade textbooks in a manner that blames the Jews
for being responsible for it when, in fact, it was the Romans who crucified
him?
In 1987, California mandated the study of
world religions in its public schools. Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity and
Buddhism would be studied in sixth grade, while seventh graders would learn
about Islam. Every six years, textbook publishers offer the California Board
of Education drafts of textbooks they plan to bring out, hoping to make California,
the nation's largest textbook purchaser, their customer. California often
sets the tone for what is adopted by other states. Public hearings form a
vital part of the review process.
The fact that Witzel's unsolicited petition
had a scholarly consensus backing it must have influenced the Board of Education
when they decided that the edits and corrections suggested by the Hindus,
and largely adopted in September by an ad hoc committee, might benefit from
another round of scrutiny -- this one by the Curriculum Commission.
Everyone will agree that history must be told
as truthfully as possible. Glossing over unpleasant issues, whether of the
past or the present, maintains a country's status quo and can promote cultural
exclusivity. To say that the Holocaust did not happen could mean repeating
the mistakes of history. Ditto for slavery in the United States.
One of the most contentious issues the Hindu
groups and Witzel and his supporters locked horns over was whether there was
any truth to the Aryan invasion theory, which maintains that a group of people
from Central Asia who called themselves Aryans invaded India around 1,500
B.C., and that Hinduism grew out of the beliefs and practices of the Aryans.
Witzel and his group support the theory; the Hindu groups do not. The Hindu
groups say that more recent archeological and DNA findings debunk the theory
and suggest that the Aryans were an indigenous people who did not invade.
Moreover, say the Hindu groups, plenty of linguistic and other evidence indicates
that Hinduism existed in India long before 1,500 B.C.
At a special meeting held by the Board of
Education on Jan. 6, to which Witzel and Prof. Shiva Bajpai, whose views the
Hindu groups support, were invited, a compromise was hammered out and accepted
by both sides. The textbooks would reflect both views, and the word "invasion"
would be replaced by migration.
Witzel, however, was right in objecting to
a correction suggested by the Hindu groups that would have changed a sentence
in an upcoming textbook that read, "Men had many more rights than women,"
to "Men had different duties, as well as rights, than women." India
has long been a patriarchal society, with women treated as the inferior sex.
The two groups finally agreed to replace the sentence with "men had more
property rights than women."
The Board of Education will finalize its decision
over some 131 corrections in early February.
Understanding the many facets of Hinduism
and India's cultural mores is not easy. Hopefully, middle school teachers
can be thoroughly educated on the subject. The correction of inaccuracies
in history textbooks, however, is an important first step.
PNS contributor Viji Sundaram is a reporter
for India-West, a weekly Indian newspaper based in the United States.
