Dalits as “people who did not follow the rules”, Californian Education board approved new textbooks to erode long history of caste oppression in India

Its bluff, if one believes that caste is only Indian phenomenon and it has no relevance in the outer world. The Brahim lobby is in force wherever they are. In California, they find their perfect ally in the face of white supremacist and succeeded in the implementation of the new course book for the 6^th and 7^th grade which discards the history of Buddhist, Sikhs, Schedule caste and other South Asian community.

On November 9 the California State Board of Education approved textbooks that go along with the narration the of Hindu Nationalist The fiction added in course syllabus is an attempt to erase the long history of caste discrimination and rewrite the South Asian history in a manner Brahminical forces always wanted.

The Anti-caste, American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan writes on her Facebook which states that “the danger of the California Department of Education refusing to protect the rights of oppressed caste immigrants is that it silences our community at a time when we deeply need to come forward to speak about the discrimination we are fighting. Equality Labs new survey on ‘caste in the United States’ shows an alarming set of data on how vast the problem of caste is. We need to fight the attempts to silence our community. Since the California Department of Education has given a platform for false scholarship and fundamentalists at the expense of our rights.”

The controversial public process to change the course book goes for two long years in which Hindu American Foundation (HAF) including Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), Uberoi Foundation (UF) and Dharma Civilization Foundation (DCF) played the influential role that results in the prejudiced portrayal of Muslims.

The Hindu American Foundation earlier campaigned for Donald Trump during the Presidential election in the country.

“The State Board just approved textbooks that unfairly characterize Muslims as hostile. Rhetoric like this contributes to over half of Muslim students in California facing religion-based bullying. We understand that alternative facts emanate from the current White House, but we’re disappointed to see them in California textbooks,” communicated CAIR California Legislative and Government Affairs Coordinator Yannina Casillas to South Asian History for All (SAHFA).

Sikh American activist Palvinder Kaur of the Jakara Movement in conversation to SAHA further said, “Anti-Muslim rhetoric affects many communities. When textbooks attack Muslims, they also impact every student perceived as Muslim. Each community must be understood within their historical context according to the primary sources, not the imaginations of those with political agendas.”

The survey on caste in United States’ which conducted by equality Labs gives some deep insight into the caste-based violence manifests in the diaspora. The report records that 25 percent of scheduled caste respondents reported experiencing physical assault due to their caste. While during the education 33 Percent of the respondent experienced discrimination. However, 66 percent respondents experience discrimination at their workplace. 40 percent of respondents said that they feel unwelcome at their place of worship.

The Hindu Journalist Varghese K George writes in an article in which he writes that “The publishers will delete the sentence, “many Hindus still observe certain cultural practices related to the caste system, such as marrying within one’s caste”, accepting the demand from an ‘advocacy group’. Mohandas Gandhi who was described as “a great leader” will now be a “great Hindu leader”. “A number of great Hindu leaders, including Mohandas Gandhi, have encouraged the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain principle of non-violence,” the new sentence says.

The textbooks repeatedly make efforts to link Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions as being based on same principles, the Journalist added.

“Just as California refuses to give in to white nationalist pressure, it must not succumb to Hindu nationalist lobbying,” states Anirvan Chatterjee, a spokesperson for the South Asian Histories for All coalition. “We demand that the California State Board of Education ensures that the histories and identities of Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs, and others aren’t erased or demonized in our textbooks. Every student deserves textbooks that are diverse, plural, and based on rigorous scholarship.”