The Hindu : Kerala News : Don’t scrap the lesson: rationalists

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Don’t scrap the lesson: rationalists

Special correspondent

Inter-caste, inter-religious couples too come out in support

‘Political parties should not support the campaign by fundamentalists, caste organisations’
Non-religious and secular content should also be taught in schools: Mishra Vivaaha Vedi

KOCHI: Associations of rationalists and inter-caste and inter-religious couples have come to the defence of the government on the controversial Class VII Social Studies lesson.

Highlighting the virtues of the lesson and standing firmly by the government, they have urged the authorities not to succumb to the ‘pressures of fundamentalists and communalists.’

While religious bodies, the Opposition United Democratic Front, including Muslim League, and community organisations claim that the lesson ‘Mathamillaatha Jeevan’ is anti-religion, the Indian Rationalists Association (IRA) says it is a model lesson for schoolchildren. The lesson was actually trying to inculcate a secular and non-parochial world view in schoolchildren.

The IRA urged the government not to pull the ‘great lesson’ out of the syllabus by succumbing to the pressures of communal and religious organisations. It also wanted political parties not to support the campaign against the lessonunleashed by ‘fundamentalists, caste organisations and certain student unions.’

Promotes humanism

The Kerala Yukthivadi Sanghom pointed out that the lesson tried to promote a humanism that was beyond religions. The lesson was secular in content — it neither opposed religion nor promoted atheism. It projected the view that human being was more important than religion. In a country like India which is a secular Republic and in which people of different faiths live together, the focus should be on secular humanism, the sanghom said.

In a statement, sanghom president U. Kalanathan and general secretary K.N. Anilkumar recalled that it was in 1974, when the Congress was in power that the government brought out an order that allowed children without religion and caste to be enrolled in schools. “What we need right now is many more non-religious Anvar Rasheeds and Srilakshmis (two characters in the lesson),” the statement said.

Mr. Kalanathan and Mr. Anilkumar said the campaign was an assault on the Indian Constitution and wanted the Left Democratic Government not to withdraw the text under any circumstances.

The Kerala Mishra Vivaaha Vedi (association of inter-caste and inter-religious couples) said that the lesson would give a confidence to the children of inter-religious couples that they can learn and grow as well as the children with caste and religion. The vedi noted that the Supreme Court had observed several times that ‘mixed marriage’ needed to be promoted. Since India is a secular country, non-religious and secular content should be included in the textbooks just as religious content is included, the Vedi argued.

It regretted that political parties and community organisations which should have worked for eradicating blind faith and superstitious rituals were now promoting them. The Vedi warned the government against any move to scrap the lesson.

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