Source: www.scribd.com

KAUAI, HAWAII, August 16, 2009: In our effort to improve the teaching of Hindu and Indian history, Hinduism Today magazine has posted on the free site, scribd.com, a series of history books used in India. Clicking on the URL above will take you to the page where each can be read, or downloaded as a PDF file.

They include:

  1. Themes in Indian history, parts 1, 2 and 3, for 12th standard
  2. Our Pasts I for standard 6
  3. Our Pasts II for standard 7
  4. Our Pasts III, part 1, for standard 8 (there is no part 2 for Our Pasts III)
  5. Medieval India, for 11th standard, by Meenakshi Jain, the so-called “saffronized” textbook produced under BJP rule
  6. Ancient India, for 11th standard, by Makkhan Lal, also a BJP-period book
  7. History in the New NCERT textbooks a critique of the BJP books by the Indian History Congress, a Marxist group of historians
  8. Fallacies in the IHC report, a rebuttal of the above
  9. The 6th to 12th standard history books presently in use in Tamil Nadu, with an emphasis on South India

Also included are Hinduism Today’s history material:

  1. Chapter One: Hinduism from Ancient Times
  2. Chapter Two: Hindu India: 300 to 1100 ce
  3. Sets of six lesson plans each for the above chapters.

All of the books are useful. The Indian books are “controversial” only in regard to the Aryan Invasion and the Muslim period. The current government puts forward the Aryan Invasion and emphasizes positive aspects of the Muslim period. The BJP books question or reject the Aryan Invasion and emphasize the devastation of the Muslim period.

However, on both counts, a balanced view can be gotten by examining the material in the BJP books, comparing it with the current official books and reading the critiques. The BJP books were written by qualified historians at Indian universities and represent true scholarly difference in point of view.

All the India textbooks benefit from a generally comprehensive and sympathetic view of India’s history and communities, one not found in Western textbooks. They are far more extensive in scope than anything found in the US or Europe for the K-12 curriculum.

Post Views: 457