SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, March 27, 2016 (Hindu Education Foundation): After protests from students and parents, the California Board of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) has rejected suggestions by a group of professors to replace the word “India” with “South Asia” in California textbooks.
A group of professors including Sheldon Pollock, Robert Goldman, Lawrence Cohen and Kamala Visweswaran, under the name of South Asia Faculty Group, had written to the Department of Education, suggesting that most references to India before 1947 be replaced with “South Asia.” The suggestions had created a huge uproar in the Indian-American community based in California. Earlier this week a petition by a group named Scholars for People and signed by over 18,000 people had asked the commission “Would you presume to deny the reality of India’s existence and history, and its deep significance to Indian American students in California, simply because a few misinformed professors of ‘South Asia Studies’ wrote you a letter recommending you re-educate California’s children in this bizarre manner?”
A large number of students and parents testified at the public hearing of the commission held in Sacramento on March 24th seeking the rejection of these changes. “India is not just a landmass but a living civilization. By removing the mention of India as a civilization, my identity as an Indian-American is sought to be erased,” a student studying in 9th grade in San Ramon, said during her testimony at the Department of Education. Narrating different incidents of stereotypes they encounter, the students demanded that Hinduism and India be portrayed in proper light.
The students also demanded that the suggestions that Vedas belong to “ancient Indian religions” and not to Hinduism amounted to stripping them of their Hindu identity. “If Vedas do not belong to the Hindus, who do they belong to?” a 10th grader from Fremont sought to know.
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