Chairman of Textbook Revision Committee Rohith Chakrathirtha's social media posts from the past spark row

Social media on Thursday was caught up in a maelstrom of tweets put out six years ago by Rohith Chakrathirtha, head of the Textbook Revision Committee. Most of them date back to 2016, and revolve around porn, classroom, teachers and women. 

Twitterati slammed Chakrathirtha for his derogatory views on women and voyeuristic tweets, and demanded that he be removed from the post. Chakrathirtha has been in the eye of a controversy for excluding writings by intellectuals, abbreviating the works of Kuvempu, and even posting a distorted version of Nadageethe. 

Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan said, “It is an affront to the people of Karnataka, that even after the highly insulting posts of Rohith Chakrathirtha came to light, the government is not taking any action. Does this mean the government agrees with his views? Allowing this person to continue in the post and allowing these textbooks are a betrayal of our children’s future.’’

Congress was quick to condemn Chakrathirtha. “He is the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party government. His attitude has been accepted by the BJP. His dirty posts show what kind of people the BJP government of Bommai is trying to encourage,” KPCC President DK Shivakumar remarked.

Opposition leader in the Legislative Council B K Hariprasad said, “The people who have trained him are from the sadistic classes, his tweets and social media posts show that he is no better than a sadist. Such a character has been made chairman of the textbook committee. Now you can imagine the fate of our children.’’

Activist Vinay Srinivasa of the Alternative Law Forum told The New Indian Express, “The social media posts of Rohith Chakrathirtha show that he is an insensitive, misogynistic and casteist person. It’s shocking that someone who speaks so lowly of women, of the killing of Gowri Lankesh, of Ambedkar and Kuvempu, was chosen to head the Textbook Revision Committee. Or maybe he was chosen for this reason. It is for the government to answer. His attitude has been reflected in the textbook revision as well. The government must immediately withdraw the changes.’’

Highly placed sources in the government said that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has been alerted 
about the developments on social media, and a collection of his “embarrassing posts” had been placed before him. His tweets are mostly about porn.

“In any ‘class room’ porn film you see that teacher writes only maths on black board! Why’’ and another, “Watching India batting is like watching porn...” Or even a joke about women drivers, “...can’t see a pillar from 2 metres while parking a car!”