Karnataka textbook row: Review committee head terms controversy ‘political witch-hunt’

Notably, some Kannada writers have sought withdrawal of their works from school textbooks reportedly in protest against the inclusion of a speech by RSS founder KB Hedgewar and exclusion of works referring to social reformers like Narayan Guru, among others, in the revised textbooks. Several academics and writers have also called on the state BJP government to dismiss the textbook committee headed by Chakrathirtha.

“There is no question of submitting my resignation to the government. The committee has already completed the task. The minister (BC Nagesh) has assured acceptance of all the recommendations of our committee,” Chakrathirtha said.

The chairman of the textbook review committee also said that he is not in favour of going back to the draft Kannada and social science textbooks prepared by the Bargaru Ramchandrappa committee constituted during the tenure of the erstwhile Congress government.

“If the government decides to step back from the current revised content in the textbooks and implement the Ramchandrappa committee’s content, it will reflect negatively on the state. Our committee referred to 30 books before making the changes in the Kannada textbook and consulted 10 books for social science,” Chakrathirtha said.

Chakrathirtha has been accused of propagating right-wing ideology through textbooks, and showing disrespect to the Karnataka state anthem in a social media post in 2017.

On Wednesday, BT Naganna, an AAP worker in Bengaluru, registered a police complaint against Chakrathirtha on charges of insulting Kuvempu, who authored the state anthem.

Responding to the charges of insulting Kuvempu, Chakrathirtha said his committee “included 10 poems of Kuvempu while Ramchandrappa’s (the previous one) committee had only included seven poems”.

“If I did not have respect as a writer for Kuvempu, like many allege, why would I include his works in the textbooks at all? Moreover, I have reiterated it several times that the Facebook post attributed to me is a forward that I had received… Despite all this, if I am to be arrested for my disrespect towards Kuvempu, I am ready to go behind bars,” Chakrathirtha said.

Several authors including Roopa Hassan, G Ramakrishna and Devanur Mahadeva, among others, have revoked their permission to use their works in school textbooks, alleging ‘undemocratic’ practices and ‘saffronisation’ of textbooks by the Chakrathirtha-led textbook revision committee.

“If the writers feel the textbooks have been saffronised, why have their works been included? During Ramachandrappa’s period, works of about 16 Brahmin authors, including Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, AK Ramanujam, and UR Ananthamurthy, were included in the Class VIII textbooks. Why did no one raise the issue of Brahminisation of textbooks then?” Chakrathirtha said.

The chairman of the textbook review committee added that the previous committee headed by Ramachandrappa had “removed the works of 33 non-Brahmin writers” from Class I to Class X textbooks.

Commenting on the criticism of him not having a background in academia, Chakrathirtha said: “I pursued MSc from a college in Tamil Nadu and later started working as a mathematics lecturer in three colleges in Bengaluru. I was also working with an education platform, training students for competitive exams such as CET, IIT and Olympiad, among others.”