Hindutva defeat sealed in CA

[Axel Michaels]

Good news!


Michael Witzel schrieb:

> With satisfaction we note that the long drawn out California battle 
> has drawn to a successful close this afternoon, at 2 p.m. PST.
>
> Today’s meeting of the subcommittee of the Board of Education (SBE) 
> has clearly come down on the side of reason and historical accuracy, 
> with a vote of 5 : zero,
>
> The recommendations of the Dept. of Education were adopted without 
> *any* changes.
>
> That means all the ahistorical and sectarian edits of the two Hindutva 
> foundations were decisively thrown out. The ‘persuasive’ proposals of 
> the 50 scholar’s letter and the second (Heitzman-Wolpert-Witzel) panel 
> as well as the results of the Jan. 6 rout of S. Bajpai carried the day.
>
> Thus, the position of women is correctly stated in the edits as 
> suppressed, the caste system and suppression of Dalits are back, 
> polytheism (not ‘God’) is back, and the Aryan migration is back.
>
> We now await the final decision of the full State Board on March 9.
>
>
> Incidentally, the funniest thing today was that one Hindutvavadin got 
> up and read some ‘Christian’ quotations out of Steve Farmer’s 
> dissertation on Pico that should have made Farmer a Bible thumping 
> creationist -- only that those sentences were Pico’s, half a 
> millennium ago, not Farmer’s. More later. Well, this great idea had 
> been spread yesterday all over the Indian Civilization list at Yahoo.
>
> Funny, that Hindutvavadins always believe their own inventions and 
> defamation...
>
> Sure enough, the ‘real reason’ for the Hindutva defeat was already 
> foretold this morning by Dr.Kalyanaraman (though it was not written in 
> his diffuse style, but clearly by a ghost writer): collusion between 
> the CA Secretary of Education, who is on Harvard’s Board --I did not 
> know that-- and the hate "mongering groups at Harvard." Almost as good 
> as the Farmer 'quote' ! Conspiracies, conspiracies...
>
> Seriously speaking, we have been predicting the defeat of the Hindutva 
> edits ever since the first reports of the irregular (and probably 
> illegal) procedures at the meeting of Dec. 2 of the SBE’s Curriculum 
> Commission reached us that day. The SBE just could not uphold the 
> historically incorrect and obscurant edits made on that day, as pushed 
> through by one of its Commissioners, in clear collusion with the 
> Hindutva groups involved; we have reported on this least earlier.
>
> The signs on the wall were visible in the materials received during 
> the informational meeting held at Sacramento on January 6, and when 
> the revised edits were published by the staff of the Dept. of 
> Education one week or two ago: almost all of the egregious and 
> ahistorical edits have been taken out, and today’s procedures at 
> Sacramento have reconfirmed that.
>
> In sum, this is a clear victory for reason and scholarship in the face 
> of sectarian and politically motivated, right wing action groups. 
> Their allegiance is elsewhere than in California and they instead aim 
> at gaining political capital in India.
>
> No smiles today but deep anger on the faces of the Hindutvavadins, who 
> openly admitted defeat, and smiles all around on the faces of the many 
> groups opposing them.
>
> All who have participated in the process of combating this 
> religio-political ideology and beating it back have good reason to be 
> elated. One onslaught on the non-sectarian American education system 
> has been defeated.
>
> However, we have to be ready for the next one. Hindutvavadins will 
> (perhaps) learn from the blatant mistakes made this time, and they 
> will begin concerted, if futile effort to change textbooks in Texas 
> two years from now.
>
> Congratulations and thanks to all involved, all around the globe. Just 
> occasionally, at least some of us have to get out of the Ivory Towner 
> and take a stand.
>
> M.Witzel
> ________________________________________________________
> I----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ----------------------------
> Michael Witzel
> Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University
> 1 Bow Street , 3rd floor, Cambridge MA 02138
> 1-617-495 3295 Fax: 496 8571
> direct line: 496 2990
> <http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasian_research/>
> < http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/>