The Sunnyvale Sun

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Textbooks to keep Hindu content

By HUGH BIGGAR

A California judge denied textbook revisions sought by Hindu religious and advocacy groups, but also said the state's textbook review process needs to be fixed.

Patrick Marlette, a Superior Court judge, made the ruling this month in response to a lawsuit by the Hindu American Foundation.

The foundation, with support from Cupertino's Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic Foundation, sued California's State Board of Education in March over depictions of Hindus in California's sixth-grade textbooks.

A similar debate took place in India in 2001; the case has local and national implications in the United States. Cupertino's population is roughly 10 percent Indian heritage. Nationally, many states base their textbook content on California's.

As a part of the lawsuit, the foundation said the textbooks misrepresented Hinduism, particularly the role of the caste system and the role of women in ancient India. For instance, several textbook companies state men had more rights than women, a phrase the HAF wanted changed to "different rights." The textbooks also included a controversial theory on Aryan migration to India.

As a result, the HAF sought to have the newly revised social science textbooks for sixth-graders removed from classes this fall.

The judge said such a removal would interrupt the school year. The textbook approval process needed to be updated to comply with current laws, the judge ruled, but in this particular case the content on Hinduism was accurate.

People on both sides of the debate viewed the judge's decision as a success.