Hedgewar lesson may go as Karnataka Congress govt firms up textbook plan

The Madhu Bangarappa-led School Education & Literacy Department is planning to remove some lessons from textbooks introduced by the previous BJP government, including one on RSS founder KB Hedgewar.

The proposed changes will be applicable from the current academic year. Errata will be issued to schools in a week's time. Teachers will be instructed not to consider chapters or lessons that are dropped.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. School Education & Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa, former textbook revision committee chief Baraguru Ramachandrappa, senior academic VP Niranjanaradhya and officials were present.

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Apart from Hedgewar, lessons authored by Hindutva proponent Chakravarthy Sulibele and scholar Bannanje Govindacharya are likely to be dropped, according to sources. "We also recommended removing some derogatory topics from the social science subject," one source who was present in the meeting said.

However, Siddaramaiah said he would place the matter in the Cabinet meeting scheduled on Thursday.

The Congress had promised in its election manifesto that it would undo changes made to school textbooks by the previous BJP administration under a committee headed by right-wing writer Rohith Chakratirtha.

Constitution of an expert committee to design new textbooks for the next academic year was also discussed in the meeting.

Experts have asked the government to make its stand clear on the National Education Policy (NEP) before constituting the committee. "It's time to frame new textbooks. But for that the government should be clear in its stand on whether or not NEP will be retained," a source said.

A group of intellectuals, including the likes of K Marulasiddappa, SG Siddaramaiah and Vasundhara Bhoopati, had met Siddaramaiah soon after he became CM. These intellectuals, under the banner of the Samana Manaskara Vedike, urged the new Congress government to withdraw textbooks that were revised by the previous BJP regime.