Karnataka: Full revision of school textbooks not on cards for now

Ramachandrappa further suggested that only the controversial lessons be replaced with new ones. It was also suggested that a circular detailing clarifications and chapter replacements be distributed among schools for the current academic year.

Some educationists say the chapter on RSS founder K B Hedgewar and works of right-wing ideologues like Chakravarthy Sulibele, Bannanje Govindacharya and others can be dropped.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Ramachandrappa said, “I have suggested the government remove controversial chapters and not go for a full textbook revision at this point. Revising the full textbook is not viable and practical. It is a time-consuming process. Instead, the government can identify the controversial lessons and drop them from the academic year. Such lessons should not be considered for examination purposes.”

Ramachandrappa also suggested that the government can refer to the revisions done by previous textbook revision committees. “The government need not form any separate committee. They can replace the controversial chapters with chapters included by previous textbook revision committee heads. The dropped and replaced chapters can be specified in a circular and distributed across the schools. The teachers will thus know what to teach and what to drop,” he added.

There were speculations that Ramachandrappa would be appointed to head the textbook revision committee again. However, he said, “I was only consulted by the government on how to go about revising the textbooks. I have shared my views with the chief minister and he seemed to concur with my suggestions. Moreover, I don’t have any interest in taking up the role as the textbook revision committee head. Let other people also get a chance to take the responsibility.”

Educationist Niranjanaradhya V P, who is working on giving recommendations to drop some of the controversial lessons, said, “It is slightly easy to review and drop lessons in Kannada because only chapters have been changed. However, with history, the previous government has changed sentences and words, which are difficult to identify and undo. We have to compare previous years’ textbooks with current textbooks to identify the changes.”

The academic year has already begun and students in government schools are being taught bridge courses. Textbook teaching is expected to start only after June 15, once the bridge courses are completed.

Textbook revision is one of the many poll promises made by the Congress during its election campaign. The matter has been in the news since the BJP government appointed right-wing ideologue Rohith Chakrathirtha as chairman of the textbook revision committee. Chakrathirtha, who was earlier booked on charge of insulting the state anthem, was accused of “saffronising” textbooks by including works of right-wing ideologues and dropping the works of noted writers such as P Lankesh and Sara Aboobacker.