1. HPI E-Mail Service Issues
2. California Board of Education Revisits Proposed Textbook Changes
3. International Temple Summit Being Held in Mumbai

1. HPI E-Mail Service Issues

www.hinduismtoday.com

KAUAI, HAWAII, January 8, 2006: We believe the problems with our e-mail service has been solved. All HPI reports for the first few days of January have been consolidated and are available in our archives at "source."

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2. California Board of Education Revisits Proposed Textbook Changes

HPI

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, January 8, 2005: California State Board of Education members and staff conducted a special, closed-door meeting on January 6 to revisit the Hindu requests for changes in the 6th grade social studies books currently proposed for adoption by the State.

The history of the issue is, in brief, that two Hindu groups, the Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic Foundation, reviewed eight books on ancient history that were submitted to the California Board of Education for adoption. These books would be taught in 6th grade social studies classes and cover ancient history, including the history of India up to about 600 ce. They submitted several hundred suggested changes (called "edits") to the books which were then reviewed by the Board's staff and Dr. Shiva Bajpai, a scholar of Indian history. Dr. Bajpai and the staff approved most of the requested edits. Then in November, 2005, Dr. Michael Witzel of Harvard University, a professor of Sanskrit, protested many of the Hindu edits. As a result, the edits were reviewed again by a group headed by Dr. Witzel. They recommended against a substantial number of the edits. Next, on December 2, 2005, the Curriculum Commission, which is an advisory group for the Board of Education, met to consider the original edits and Dr. Witzel's counter recommendations. At that meeting, (see full report here), most of the originally proposed Hindu edits were accepted and little of Dr. Witzel's input accepted. A document with each of the Hindu edits, Dr. Bajpai's recommendations, Dr. Witzel's recommendations and Dr. Bajpai's comments on Dr. Witzel's recommendations is available here. Also available at the same URL are three sample pages from the texts which Dr. Bajpai considered especially objectionable.

Dr. Witzel then petitioned the Board for a further consideration, and this January 6 meeting was the result. Present for the meeting were Dr. Witzel, Dr. Bajpai, Ruth Green, president of the State Board of Education, Sue Stickle, Assistant Superintendent of Education, other Board members, staff and an attorney for the Board. In the all-day meeting, the group went over every one of the disputed edits. At the beginning, the ground rules were set in such a way by the Board that Dr. Witzel and Dr. Bajpai would discuss each disputed edit and try to arrive at a compromise solution acceptable to both. If such a compromise could not be found, no change in the texts in question will be allowed, thereby giving Dr. Witzel the final say in the matter since he was already against most changes in the first place. It was noted at the meeting that, despite its December 2 meeting and decision, the Curriculum Commission had "made no recommendation." The Commission does act in an advisory capacity only, it should be noted, and the legal authority to decide on the edits has always rested with the Board.

Given the ground rules, Dr. Bajpai obviously faced an uphill battle, and tried to make the best of the situation. Normally, in such a situation, there would have been a knowledgeable umpire to break an impasse. But in this case, Dr. Witzel had the veto power over any suggestion. In the course of the long meeting, there were a number of compromises worked out. For example, in the Glencoe/McGraw-Hill book, edit 19, the text read : . "Men had many more rights than women." The Hindus proposed to replaced it with "Men had different duties (dharma) as well as rights than women." Dr. Bajpai had recommended adoption of this change and Dr. Witzel opposed it. A compromise was reached to say that "men had more property rights than women" (the exact wording of the various compromises and decisions is not yet available). In another edit, a similar sentence, "Men inherited the property," was changed to say, "Typically men inherited the property."

There was heated debate over the caste system, with apparently few of the requested Hindu changes being accepted. There was discussion over whether Hindus were trying to introduce the concept of Western monotheism into Hinduism, as charged by Dr. Witzel. Dr. Bajpai's response was that Hindus were trying to inject Hindu monotheism, in which God is both immanent and transcendent, rather than Western monotheism in which God is transcendent only. On another issue, Hindus wanted the word "enlightenment" changed to "God-Realization," to which Dr. Witzel objected. A compromise was reached to say "divine enlightenment," which at least distanced the Hindu view of enlightenment from the Buddhist view. References to "gods and goddesses" were generally replaced with "deities." Several pictures Hindus objected to will be removed as requested, including one of a Muslim man misidentified as a "brahmin," and another of a Hindu praying with the Taj Mahal in the background. Both are in Dr. Bajpai's example pages, here.

Overall, it was estimated that perhaps 85% of the Hindu changes were accepted in original or modified form. This meeting was, however, still an advisory meeting, and nothing was finalized. The Board of Education is holding its next meeting in February. The date will be put on their website, here, along with all the proposed final edits. There will be further opportunity for public input, and the Board meeting at which the final decision is made will be public.

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3. International Temple Summit Being Held in Mumbai

www.telegraphindia.com

MUMBAI, INDIA, January 4, 2006: Almost all famous temples of the country are coming together to conduct for the first time serious worldly business. On January 28 and 29, the temple teams will come together at a new five-star hotel in the city for a seminar, held at the initiative of Mumbai's most revered mandir, the Siddhivinayak temple, to discuss corporate governance. With faith staging an explosive comeback -- as many as nine spiritual channels are on air in the country now --temples feel that it is high time they go in for management tools to run their secular affairs. To be attended by the biggest temples -- apart from Siddhivinayak, there will be 20 mandirs, including Tirupati, Vaishnodevi, Guruvayoor, Shirdi, Kedarnath, Badrinath and also Pashupatinath in Nepal -- the International Temple Summit 2006 will be inaugurated by Union tourism minister Renuka Chowdhury (temple tourism will be high on the agenda).

"It will be a 'non-religious' seminar on temple management and administration," says Sanjay Bhagwat, appropriately designated CEO of the Shree Siddhivinayak Temple Trust. Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC Ltd, who confirmed his participation today, will address the seminar on financial management problems. Ad guru Alyque Padamsee will hold forth on the importance of public relations in temple management. Financial advice is necessary, says Bhagwat, because temples have a lot of surplus income, and they want the money to be invested judiciously. "At the end of the summit, the participants would be in a position to understand the need and relevance of temple management and administration in today's times. They would also be oriented towards certain tools to effectively manage the administration," says the Powerpoint presentation on the seminar by Bhagwat.

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