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MANGALORE: The Committee for Resisting Saffronization of Textbooks in Karnataka has written to the Karanataka Textbook Society asking them to publish the content of textbooks of class VI and IX and to make public the curriculum vitae of its members.
 
They have written a letter to the Karnataka Text book Society urging them to publish the content of text books and also make public the curriculum vitae of the members of the society.
 
Suresh Bhat Bakrabailu of the committee said, "In the past academic year it was noticed that the textbooks of class V and VIII had contents that were against the spirit of National Curriculum Framework 2005. We have now learnt that new textbooks for class VI and IX are being prepared. We have also learnt that drafts of the textbooks have been dispatched to all the District Institutes of Education Training (DIET) and Colleges of Teacher Education (CTE for evaluation. We demand that copies of the new textbooks should be made public. Suggestions from experts and educationalists should be sought before the finalization of the content."
 
Educationist CH Krishna Shastry Balila said a state-level textbook council should be set up at the earliest. "A council shall work as a permanent vigilance body to monitor textbooks taught in public and private schools. Such a council be set up at the earliest and it be allowed to function in an independent manner, free from all state interferences," he added.
 
Earlier, the committee had pointed out that a fable titled ’Punyakoti’ was rewritten in which a tiger made a vow not to eat cow’s meat, a misrepresentation of the original fable.
 
The committee members had said, "The kings of Keladi are shown as promoters of the Hindu religion in social science textbook of class V in Bangalore division. The battles they fought with the Hindu kings of neighbouring states are missing. Only the wars fought against Muslims and foreign rulers have been mentioned. At the end of a lesson on Punyakoti (Hindi textbook of class VIII, Bangalore division), a tiger takes an oath that consumption of cow’s meat is a bad thought and henceforth he won’t eat cow’s meat. In the original Kannada version, the ending is entirely different - the tiger doesn’t take any such oath,but actually dies by jumping off a cliff."