{"id":5706,"date":"2016-04-24T19:13:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T19:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=5703&amp;preview_id=5703"},"modified":"2016-04-24T19:13:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-24T19:13:50","slug":"teaching-hinduism-in-california-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=5706","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Hinduism in California schools | Religion News Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">(RNS) An open\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cde.app.box.com\/s\/j540vhsd1ye3nhyz4fkpi8viq5ezvtab\/6\/6789701350\/55324444006\/1\"><span class=\"s2\">letter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to the California Department of Education, signed by a group of <\/span><span class=\"s3\">academics, many of whom are\u00a0sympathetic\u00a0to the Indian left,<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> is threatening to downgrade, and in many cases remove, the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s3\">terms India and Hinduism<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0from schoolbooks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Two years ago, Hindu and Indian-American groups began working with the department\u2019s\u00a0Instructional Quality Commission to ensure a culturally competent and accurate curriculum framework to be passed on to<\/span><span class=\"s3\"> teachers and textbook publishers of sixth and seventh grade world history.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1\">\n<aside id=\"doubleclick_widget-5\" class=\"widget widget-1 odd default widget_doubleclick_widget clearfix\"><\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p><span class=\"s1\">In collaboration with leading historians and religious studies professors, the Hindu American Foundation and other advocacy groups submitted several<\/span><span class=\"s3\">\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cde.app.box.com\/s\/j540vhsd1ye3nhyz4fkpi8viq5ezvtab\/4\/6789701350\/55324727050\/1\"><span class=\"s1\">recommendations<\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0that would give Hinduism accurate and equitable in comparison to other religious traditions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Many of the Hindu American Foundation\u2019s suggestions were incorporated, but the process was interrupted with the zero-hour arrival of said open letter by academics collectivized under the rubric of South Asia Faculty Group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Many of these scholars offering alterations\u00a0focusing on Hinduism, ironically include<\/span><span class=\"s4\">\u00a0specialists in Islamic studies, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/southasia.berkeley.edu\/asad-q-ahmed\"><span class=\"s5\">Asad Q. Ahmad<\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s6\">,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/~sbashir\/#about\"><span class=\"s7\">Shahzad Bashir<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/meis.sfsu.edu\/page\/chris-chekuri\"><span class=\"s5\">Chris Chekuri<\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s4\">,<\/span><span class=\"s6\">\u00a0as well as prominent Indian Americans of the Indian left, such as\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu\/faculty\/Visweswaran.html\"><span class=\"s5\">Kamala Viswesaran<\/span><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s4\">,<\/span><span class=\"s6\">\u00a0amongst others. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2\">\n<aside id=\"doubleclick_widget-6\" class=\"widget widget-1 odd default widget_doubleclick_widget clearfix\"><\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The demands in their letter were breathtaking: Replace mentions of ancient India with the nebulous \u201cSouth\u00a0Asia\u201d; replace \u201cHinduism\u201d with \u201cancient religion(s) of India\u201d; remove several <\/span><span class=\"s3\">favorable\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">references to Hinduism; and unequivocally locate the horrendous practice of caste-based discrimination as an integral part of the practice of Hinduism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The stated reason for\u00a0replacing India with \u201cSouth Asia\u201d would seem benign: Much of ancient India was divided after <\/span><span class=\"s3\">the end\u00a0of <\/span><span class=\"s1\">British colonial rule, into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Using \u201cSouth Asia\u201d would appropriately identify the region and its similar cultural heritage without subsuming the identity of those post-colonial states.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But archaeologists <\/span><span class=\"s3\">and leading scholars<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> confirm that there was an ancient civilization made up\u00a0of many lands and kingdoms that shared civilizational traits, invoked shared gods and goddesses and built temples and monuments to mark their tenure on those lands. It stretched throughout the Indian plains into the Himalayas and Central Asia, and ancient rulers carried the culture and Hindu religion of that civilization to the far reaches of East Asia, into Burma, Bhutan, Thailand (where the Hindu epic Ramayana is adapted as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ramakien\"><span class=\"s2\">Ramakien<\/span><\/a>) and Cambodia (think\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Angkor_Wat\"><span class=\"s2\">Angkor Wat<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3\">\n<aside id=\"doubleclick_widget-92\" class=\"widget widget-1 odd default widget_doubleclick_widget clearfix\"><\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Reducing ancient India to the anodyne \u201cSouth Asia\u201d may be geographically accurate, but scholars know that there was never an entity called \u201cAncient South Asia.\u201d Ruins of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations exist in Libya, Israel, Jordan and Turkey, among many other countries, but the names of the civilizations have not been replaced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The South Asia Faculty Group\u00a0uses reverse logic to also try to\u00a0delete the word \u201cHinduism\u201d several times in the frameworks. On the one hand, the scholars would replace \u201cIndia\u201d with a more contemporary \u201cSouth Asia,\u201d but at the same time, they would delete \u201cHinduism\u201d even while they argue that the term is of contemporary origin. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If erasing \u201cIndia\u201d for \u201cSouth Asia\u201d or replacing \u201cHinduism\u201d \u2014 because the term did not exist in ancient India \u2014 is not confusing enough,\u00a0these same scholars are excoriating Hindu groups for suggesting that the 50-year-old term \u201cDalit,\u201d or British-era colonial term \u201cuntouchables,\u201d finds no mention in any relevant Hindu scripture.\u00a0Or for suggesting, as academics should know, that a birth-based\u00a0hierarchical caste system and caste-based discrimination find no sanction, no prescription and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/swarajyamag.com\/culture\/caste-hierarchy-and-discrimination-not-sanctioned-by-the-vedas\"><span class=\"s2\">no\u00a0mention<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in revealed, Hindu scripture \u2014 the Srutis, such as the Vedas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Why would the professors delete the word \u201cHinduism,\u201d which a billion people in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and elsewhere call their own \u2014 and 3 million Americans embrace \u2014 and replace it\u00a0with a host of terms that have no use in common parlance? Why try so hard to erase India (the Hindu American Foundation\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abc7news.com\/education\/dont-erase-india-social-media-campaign-to-launch\/1278428\/\"><span class=\"s2\">launched<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0#donteraseindia to counter precisely that)? And why would the <\/span><span class=\"s3\">faculty group\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">preserve \u201cHinduism\u201d only to link it to caste?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some of this is a reaction to the rise of Hindu nationalism in India \u2013 an attempt to disrupt the narrative that ancient India was a great civilization that gave the world yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, etc., and the notion that today\u2019s India is the inheritor of that legacy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The politics behind these changes are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2016\/04\/12\/scholars-who-study-hinduism-and-india-face-hostile-climate\"><span class=\"s2\">complex<\/span><\/a>, but what is clear is that such deletions and substitutions bear no relevance to actual practitioners of Hinduism. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s4\">California\u2019s decision will have outsize impact. As <\/span><span class=\"s1\">one of the largest purchasers of textbooks\u00a0in the nation, most publishers will release books that include the California frameworks, and these will be consumed by countless smaller school boards.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_173628\" class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-173628\" src=\"http:\/\/1aon88369c3gtkxjg19cnprs.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/HAFHeadshots-03162013-8-lowres_crop.jpeg\" alt=\"Aseem Shukla, M.D. is co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation (www.hafsite.org), and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of Hindu American Foundation\" width=\"288\" height=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aseem Shukla, M.D. is co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation (www.hafsite.org), and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of Hindu American Foundation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And while academics\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">today are eager to engage in contentious socio-political causes, they must not use the privilege of their position to impose campus politics on a middle school curriculum.\u00a0 Because what matters is that erasing Hinduism from texts does not erase\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/murali-balaji\/california-frameworks-eff_b_9526390.html\"><span class=\"s2\">bullying<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that Hindu and Indian-American children face stemming from ignorance arising from such deletions. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>(Aseem Shukla, M.D., is an associate professor of surgery\u00a0at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/religionnews.com\/2016\/04\/24\/the-academic-assault-on-hinduism-commentary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Teaching Hinduism in California schools | Religion News Service<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) An open\u00a0letter\u00a0to the California Department of Education, signed by a group of academics, many of whom are\u00a0sympathetic\u00a0to the Indian left, is threatening to downgrade, and in many cases remove, the\u00a0terms India and Hinduism\u00a0from schoolbooks. Two years ago, Hindu and Indian-American groups began working with the department\u2019s\u00a0Instructional Quality Commission to ensure a culturally competent and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}