Victory for Suhag Shukla and other Indian nationalists.
AB Wire
In a victory for Indian nationalists, the state of California has decided to use the word ‘India’ in its school textbooks, and not ‘South Asia’ as recommended by some left-leaning academics.
The academics had argued that ‘India’ was a post-colonial term entity. More appropriate would be the term ‘South Asia’ which would be more pertinent when teaching ancient history. Some Indian nationalist groups didn’t see eye-to-eye with that, and it seemed to be a slight to the country itself, in their opinion.
According to the nationalists, it would have led to a precedent for other changes of established geographical terms, like Indian Ocean as South Asian Ocean and the Indus Valley Civilization as South Asian Valley Civilization.
The mater was finally heard yesterday, on Thursday, by the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), which reviews pedagogical issues once every 10 years. It ruled in favor of ‘India’. It rejected also demands from the South Asia Faculty Group to rename ‘Hinduism’ as ‘religion of ancient India.’
An advocate for the ‘India’ term, Vamsee Juluri, professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, said in a statement: “Scholars for People is happy to announce that India will not be replaced with ‘South Asia’ in the California history frameworks. The Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) voted today to let the name of the ‘Ancient India’ chapter remain as it was, and will not change it to ‘South Asia’ or ‘India/South Asia’ as previously announced.”
He added: “This is an important moment for everyone who rose up spontaneously to make the Scholars for People petition a powerful symbol of the aspirations and hopes of the people of India and the diaspora.”
It was sweet victory also for Suhag Shukla, executive director of Hindu American Foundation, based in Washington, DC, who led the battle for the Indian nationalists. She felt that to change ‘India’ to ‘South Asia’ would be a mischaracterization and marginalization of India in California textbooks and curriculum.
Before the meeting on Thursday, Tom Adams, deputy superintendent of instruction for the California Department of Education, said the changes are based on the recommendation of scholars of the region, in an effort to better inform students of the latest historical research and make them aware of the contribution of all groups, including those who have not received appropriate recognition in the past, reported the San Jose Mercury News.
“There was no overarching intent to eliminate India. We did not erase India from the textbooks,” Vijaya Nagarajan, an associate professor of theology at University of San Francisco, who was among the scholars in the South Asian Faculty Group who recommended the changes, was quoted as saying. “That was simply not true.”
An estimated 3.8 million people of Asian-Indian descent live in the United States, according to the latest U.S. Census figures, and between 800,000 to one million Hindu Americans live in California, according to the Hindu American Foundation.