To: Mr. Tom Adams
Date: 17 November 2005
Subject: Errors pertaining to Hinduism in California State Textbooks (Grade VI)

Dear Mr Adams,

Last week, I encountered a disturbing and a scurrilous petition on the Internet authored by Harvard Professor Witzel, and supposedly endorsed by 46 other academics, objecting to proposed revisions to Grade VI ancient history textbooks. These signatories allege that the proposed changes were motivated by Hindu Nationalist leanings of some organizations.

I am writing to you as an author whose critiques of Indian textbooks on Ancient Indian History textbooks have been published in academic journals and as a California resident whose son attends state public school. In fact, two of my reviews demonstrate how the writings of Professor Witzel [Ref 1 below], and of two other [ref 2 below] signatories (Romila Thapar and D N Jha) show a subtle political propaganda and hatred towards Hindus, and take too much liberty with historical data.

Let me inform you at the very outset that the author Professor Witzel is widely regarded as anti-Hindu and anti-Indian by many members of the corresponding minority communities in the United States, as a simple Google search would confirm. Secondly, he and some of the signatories leave remarks bordering on prejudice and stereotypes about these minorities on various Internet boards (and even in print) with an amazing regularity. This has often lead to threats of lawsuits. Several other signatories are actually non-scholars in the subject of ancient Indian history (contrary to the claims that they are 'world class specialists') and have strong ties with Indian political parties such as Communists. As a member of the Hindu American and Indian American minority community, I feel very alarmed that such people should have any influence in deciding the contents of texts that my children will read in classrooms.

That aside, I was pained to note that their petition did not show any evidence of first hand acquaintance with any of the textbooks in question, or even with the suggestion offered by various Hindu organizations. Their petition was, as is apparent, an exercise in paranoia and defamation. The California Board of Education must also ponder if it should violate its procedures to admit such a crude petition at this stage of the textbook review process. The Board must reflect if people such as tenured Professor Witzel who use quite uncivilized language on the Internet (and even in their publications) could be trusted to write textbooks for impressionable Grade VI children.

In the last one week, I went to the Sonoma County office of Education to consult the textbooks, and also contacted the various organizations who have submitted their list of corrections to understand the matter. The textbooks do have many blatant errors, but even more significantly, they are unfair to Hindus in the description of our faith. Whereas the traditions of other faiths and cultures are described from both an emic and etic (insider and outsider) perspectives, Hindu traditions are described purely from a etic perspective [ref 3 below]. Whereas any negative statements remarks about other traditions (say Christianity or Islam) are either absent or are hedged by positive statements, there is an excessive dwelling on the negative aspects of Hindu traditions [ref 4 below]. This violates the principle of parity, and is unfair to our law abiding minority that continues to contribute to the mosaic of the American society and economy.

Some textbooks have astonishingly frivolous (if not outright prejudiced) remarks. For instance, a textbook (authored by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, who is also one of the signatories to the Dr Witzel petition) asks students to see if there are any monkeys in the class while discussing the story of monkeys helping Lord Rama. It would be quite obvious that students would look at their Hindu classmates and jeer at them. Rather, the authors should have used this story to explain how Hindus promote harmony with other living creatures by incorporating the latter in their sacred narratives (monkeys are not killed in the Hindu society, as are many other animals and plants).

California is considered a progressive state, and I would be very disturbed if CBE is mislead by some politically motivated and paranoid academics whose writings are NOT necessarily mainstream (contrary to their claims) and who are indulging in stereotyping by labeling perfectly honest and non-political organizations of Hindus in California.

Should you require any assistance from me on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me via phone or email.

Sincerely,
Vishal Agarwal

1. Agarwal, Vishal. 2005. "A Critique of Michael Witzel's 'Ein Fremdling im Rgveda' (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003)". In 'Puratattva', Vol. 35 (2004-2005)

2. Agarwal, Vishal. 2005. Misrepresentation and Stereotyping of Hindu Dharma in History Textbooks in India. In 'History Today', vol. 5, 2004-05:61-76

3. For instance, the discredited and racist Aryan invasion theory from 19th century colonial scholarship is used to explain the origins of Hinduism, when the actual fact is that Hindu traditions are completely silent to this day on this supposed invasion or migration are not history centric at all.

4. For instance, Christianity is not presented as an advance or improvement over Judaism, whereas Buddhism is typically presented as a faith that reformed evil practices of Hinduism. The texts also dwell excessively on inequality in ancient Indian society, ignoring that equality of all men is a fairly modern ideal that was absent in all traditional cultures, and has not been realized even today. The lack of parity in CA textbooks is a case in the point.