Critics gun for ‘Sahitya Sodaru’ text on grounds it offends ‘Dasa Sahitis’

MANGALURU: Selective nit-picking into

Sahitya Sodaru

textbook prescribed for second year BA (Kannada optional) students of Mangalore

University

has forced the

Kannada

board of studies (BoS) of the university to withdraw it.

Registrar A M Khan in a circular has directed the BoS to substitute this lesson titled Keerthana Sahitya Charitre with lesson on Keerthana Sahitya prescribed in Nada Deepa

textbook

with immediate effect.

The circular dated March 13 also directs BoS to replace Tripadi Sahitya prescribed in Sahitya Sodaru with Shatpadi Sahitya lesson in Nada Deepa for the fourth semester students of the university. While Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishat claimed this change (in lesson) as a victory for its stand that the lesson portrayed Purandara Dasa and Kanaka Dasa in poor light, the BoS sees it as deliberate attempt to vitiate the academic atmosphere.

Basawesh Kori, organising secretary, Mangaluru division of ABVP, told TOI that Keerthana Sahitya Charitre in Sahitya Sodaru was an insult to Dasa Sahitya. “We had flagged this issue with the university and sensing an agitation brewing on the count, the BoS on direction from the university has met and decided to delete the offending lesson from the text,” Kori said, adding this welcome decision is a victory for the pro-activeness of parishat.

Averring that Kannada BoS has continued its bungling ways for past three-years, Kori said the BoS in not discharging its duties effectively and has brought disrepute to the university. “The authorities must issue show cause notice to the chairman of BoS, also chief editor of the textbook committee, executive editor and three-member editorial board, blacklist these five and not vest them with the responsibility of preparing textbooks in future,” Kori said.

Unfazed by this demand, Shivaram Shetty, then chairman, BoS, told TOI that it is selective nit-picking by a section of Kannada teachers with a personal agenda that is forcing university’s hand in this regard.

Referring to previous instances where similar controversy was stoked with H Nagaveni’s Gandhi Bandha, Baragur Ramachandra’s Yuddha Ondhu Udyama, Vittal Hegde’s Maguvina Tandhe, Shetty said Kannada teachers have had no reservations in teaching the same in classrooms. “Perceiving literature is left to individual sensibilities and there is a deliberate attempt to distort its cultural and historical connotations to suit a few,” he said.

The BoS doesn’t have its personal agenda in picking any text, Shetty said on the other hand it is done after due diligence only to introduce students to the best of literary minds that operated across ages that formed formative and development stages of Kannada literature. “Rather than flag any such issues in open, the critics should come to us with their concern and then go public if BoS is not receptive to their concerns,” Shetty said.

A M Khan told TOI he has instructed the BoS to be more cautious about preparing textbooks in future given the string of controversies that have hit the university in this regard in the past few years. “I have asked the Kannada BoS to hold workshops and then decide on textbooks and its content with the broad framework of the syllabus,” he said. Shetty said the BoS has been receptive to concerns and acted in a manner so as not to hurt sensibilities.