Small is beautiful

Destination Amarnath

Inspired, perhaps, by the title of V P Singh’s new biography (Manzil Se Zyada Safar), this week’s editorial asserts the “yatra” to Amarnath is more important than the provenance of the ice lingam at jounrey’s end. “Are we losing the true meaning of the Amarnath Yatra in the brouhaha of controversy over the Himalingam?” asks the editorial. And goes on to blame not just the “jehadi” politics of J&K, but also the UPA government’s “anti-Hindu” mindset for raising an “orchestrated frenzy” in order to question the authenticity of the shrine and the pilgrimage.

“UPA-ruled state governments trample on Hindu rights in state after state, as if being Hindu in India is a crime… The Amarnath Ice Lingam conspiracy has to be seen in this light. Yet another Indian icon of faith is under a planned attack,” it says.

But the yatra is not only about the ice shivalingam. Neither is it just about the “individual’s urge to take his soul to soaring heights…” It is about the “larger issue of cultural unity and vision of India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari from Kathiawar to Kamrup” that has existed “for thousands of years in the mind and soul of the people that shaped India’s intellect and emotion, life, literature and philosophy,” asserts the editorial.

Revisiting history textbooks

An entire section is devoted to the theme “Save Education, Save India”—a part of the RSS-backed campaign against the UPA government’s efforts to “detoxify” NCERT’s history textbooks that had been imbued with the saffron hue during NDA rule. A “grand convention” of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (SBAS) will be held in Delhi on July 9 to protest the “distortion” in the current lot of textbooks. The articles in the Organiser focus on the alleged distortions.

Former NCERT director J S Rajput says the “hidden agenda” of the HRD ministry is: “Education for Vote, Vote and Vote! Education in India now faces a disastrous syndrome under the cover of de-saffronisation, de-toxification, minorityism and finally, casteism, which appear to be the most ‘productive’ of the ingredients towards educational progress in India!”

Meenakshi Jain says, “the antipathy to indigenous culture and traditions remain strong” in Prof. Satish Chandra’s Medieval India textbook for Class XI. And Devendra Swaroop slams Bipan Chandra’s Modern India for describing freedom fighters as “terrorists”. In an interview, SBAS convenor Dinanath Batra says the NCERT was forced to delete 37 objectionable passages from textbooks following petitions filed in the Delhi High Court and asserts that their movement is gathering strength.

(Compiled by Manini Chatterjee)