SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, April 12, 2016 (India West): Strengthening its fight against proposed edits to the California school curriculum, which seek to remove some references to India and Hinduism and replace them with the terms “South Asia” and “ancient Indian religion,” respectively, the Hindu American Foundation launched a campaign on social media April 6 to keep Hindu and Indian history included and accurate within the framework of the textbooks.
Called #DontEraseIndia, the campaign will continue until May 11-12, which is when the State Board of Education hearing is scheduled that will make a decision on whether or not to incorporate the suggested edits, which HAF says reinforce cultural stereotypes and historical inaccuracies. According to HAF, there are 33 places in the sixth and seventh grade curriculum where any reference to India or Hinduism will either be removed or replaced.
On March 24, over 100 Hindu Americans staged a silent protest outside the Department of Education building in Sacramento, Calif., to voice their concerns regarding the California Department of Education Instructional Quality Commission’s plans to accept edits made by a group of South Asian studies faculty members to California state textbooks from Grade 6-10. Samir Kalra, HAF director and senior fellow for Human Rights, had earlier told India-West that the majority of the edits that the faculty group were trying to suggest were “negative in nature in relation to Hinduism and India” and that they were trying to “erase a lot of the identity and contribution of Hinduism and ancient Indian civilization.”