While the revision of school textbooks is creating an uproar and writers are demanding that their chapters be dropped, novelist SL Bhyrappa said students must be taught truth and not any ideologies.
Though the Saraswathi Samman awardee did not draw any conclusion to the ongoing row but he categorically defended the Government of Karnataka. He said that students must be taught truth related to history and not any other ideologies.
Going back to the tenure of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and recollecting his experience with a textbook revision committee, Bhyrappa said when the NCERT committee had included his name in the panel, he had questioned Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and his atrocity.
"Without much discussion or answer to my questions, the meeting was called off. After 15 days, I was dropped from the committee which was reconstituted by adding a communist to it," he said.
He also referred to an incident that occurred in Mahabaleshwar with a guide, where the facts related to a war between Chatrapathi Shivaji Maharaj and Afzal Khan were concealed and a board displaying this was removed ahead of the election during his visit.
Drawing the line between the ongoing row over the textbooks and the 'Award Wapsi' campaign that took place when Narendra Modi assumed charge as the prime minister of the country, Bhyrappa said, "I had actually suggested getting back not only awards but also the money which was announced to them," he opined.
Bhyrappa condemned the chaos at Primary and Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh's house and said, "If the police were not there, the NSUI activists would have set it afire."
He spoke about the controversy surrounding Tipu Sultan and said, "Tipu Sultan is glorified but when his atrocities especially in the Kodagu region are questioned, people call those asking questions as communal. This is what happened with Rangayana director Addanda Cariappa, who being a Kodava, had raised objections to Tipu Sultan. Attempts were made to get him sacked but it could not happen," he said.
