Karnataka: 'CM Basavaraj Bommai should've heard opposing views'

BENGALURU: Baraguru Ramachandrappa, the chairman of the previous textbook revision committee, said chief minister Basavaraj Bommai should have called the opposing stakeholders for a meeting, instead of following the minister's report.
In response to the CM's statements made late on Friday and the report submitted by primary and secondary education minister BC Nagesh, Ramachandrappa gave a detailed clarification on Saturday. He termed the revision anti-Dalit, anti-women and against Constitutional values, social justice and equality.
Countering the claims in the report on Basavanna, he said: "While in class 6 Social Science part 2, many aspects our committee had suggested have been retained, in class 9 Social Science, the new panel has dropped many important parts. This includes Basavanna's views on rituals in Vedic periods, janivara and views of body as a temple. Our committee had added Basavanna's Jeevan Darshana as a new chapter in Kannada first language book, which has been dropped."
On Kuvempu, he said it's true that there are 10 poems added by the new committee while his committee's yardstick was to include Kannada writers whose works were not there in the original textbook.
"Our action was in tune with Kuvempus's goal of unified Karnataka and social justice. The CM's claim of 10 poems, however, does not take away the injustice the new committee has done to Naadageethe and the Kannada flag," Ramachandrappa said.
He said the new committee has dropped several parts, including details on territory, from the chapter his committee had introduced in Social Science class 7. "In Kannada texts, all Dalit writers except Devanuru Mahadeva and works of many women writers have been dropped. Poems with reference to Buddha in Ambedkar's lives have been dropped. Ambedkar's Nasik temple entry details are missing. When there is a revision, there is a yardstick to make additions and deletion. Here, it is missing," he alleged.