Shows anguish over negative portrayal of Hinduism, India

Indian-Americans have expressed anguish over the negative portrayal of Hinduism and India in the proposed California school textbooks.

“It is disappointing to see even after a decade of building awareness by the Hindu-American community, textbooks, especially by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Discovery and National Geographic continue to use orientalist narratives to portray Indian civilisation,” said Shantharam Nekkar, director of Hindu Education Foundation U.S.A. His remarks came at a public hearing by the California Department of Education at Sacramento on Thursday.

For the past several years, the Indian-American community has been battling to remove several inaccuracies and myths about Hinduism from the textbooks. The State of California mandates that the textbooks to be based on the framework laid down by the Department of Education.

Framework revised

The framework was revised last year amid controversies, including attempts by a few academics and groups to replace ‘India’ with ‘South Asia’.

Over the past two years, the Department has made several updates to the framework based on inputs by scholars, students and the community members.