What's new

India textbook says meat-eaters lie and commit sex crimes

Meat-eaters "easily cheat, lie, forget promises and commit sex crimes", according to a controversial school textbook available in India.

New Healthway, a book on hygiene and health aimed at 11 and 12 year-olds, is printed by one of India's leading publishers.

Academics have urged the government to exercise greater control.

But the authorities say schools should monitor content as they are responsible for the choice of textbooks.

"This is poisonous for children," Janaki Rajan of the Faculty of Education at Jamia Millia University in Delhi told the BBC.

"The government has the power to take action, but they are washing their hands of it," she said.

It is not known which Indian schools have bought the book for their students, but correspondents say what is worrying is that such a book is available to students.

"The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables," reads a chapter entitled Do We Need Flesh Food?

The chapter details the "benefits" of a vegetarian diet and goes on to list "some of the characteristics" found among non-vegetarians.

"They easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes," it says.

The chapter, full of factual inaccuracies, refers to Eskimos (Inuit) as "lazy, sluggish and short-lived", because they live on "a diet largely of meat".

It adds: "The Arabs who helped in constructing the Suez Canal lived on wheat and dates and were superior to the beef-fed Englishmen engaged in the same work."

The publishers, S Chand, did not respond to the BBC's requests for a comment.


Source:-

BBC News - India textbook says meat-eaters lie and commit sex crimes

I have seen this in Lucknow text books from some of the best schools in Lucknow. Its history that suffers the worst. Basically Mughal history is blighted and abused while Marathas are promoted. Durranis are promoted as murderers while Muslims view them as heroes. Its unfortunate actually... both sides of history should be taught. I saw this article long time back:

Another rewrite for India's history books

Share 0
inShare0
Email

Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
The Guardian, Saturday 26 June 2004 02.15 BST

India's new government is poised to rewrite the history taught to the nation's schoolchildren after a panel of eminent historians recommended scrapping textbooks written by scholars hand-picked by the previous Hindu nationalist administration.

Hundreds of thousands of textbooks are likely to be scrapped by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, the central government body that sets the national curriculum for students up to 18.

The move, one of the first made by the new Congress led government, will strongly signal a departure from the programme of its predecessor.

The "saffronisation" of history, say critics of the last government, depicted India's Muslim rulers as barbarous invaders and the medieval period as a dark age of Islamic colonial rule which snuffed out the glories of the Hindu empire that preceded it.

Memorably, one textbook claimed that the Taj Mahal, the Qu'tb Minar and the Red Fort, three of India's outstanding examples of Islamic architecture, were designed and commissioned by Hindus.

Most controversial was the book History of India, by the country's foremost historian, Romila Thapar. This concluded that the "Aryans", venerated by the Hindu right as indigenous geniuses who created the Indus Valley civilisation, were nomadic tribes who spread from the Middle East.

Ms Thapar was removed from the Indian Council for Historical Research less than three months after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) took power in 1999.

There has also been much criticism of the way that the pernicious effects of the caste system had been downplayed and that practices now considered anathema to religious Hindus but once widespread, such as beef eating, had simply been erased from history books.

The three-member panel of historians examining the "inadequacies" of history textbooks recommended the "discontinuation" of their use in the national syllabus.

After submitting a report to India's education minister, Professor S Settar, a distinguished historian of ancient India, told reporters: "We found it not advisable to continue (with these books)."

The government will decide early next month to what extent it will accept the academics' verdict, but as it has stressed that it will seek to reach out to minorities, it is expected to implement Prof Settar's report in full.

Hindu nationalists have long sought to overturn the conventional view of Indian culture - that it developed through mass migrations and trade links with neighbouring empires.

Instead, religious revivalists wanted to emphasise the uniqueness of Hinduism and its resilience to "foreign" invasion. Many on the Hindu right are furious that their revisionist interpretation of history is now being revised, blaming the influence of "leftists and Marxists".

"If highlighting only Muslim rule in India as a gift to humanity, and dismissing the pre-Muslim period as a dark age, amounts to history, we are against that sort of history," said Seshadri Chari, former editor of Organizer, house organ of the BJP.

However, more traditional academics are scathing about the previous government's acts, saying they amounted to little more than vandalism.

Professor Arjun Dev, author of a textbook "updated" by the last government, said the changes were belated. "The government did not need experts to tell them history had been rendered false. It was so clumsily done that awkward facts, like the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu nationalist in 1948, were simply left out of some textbooks."

Furthermore I went after this article, in 2006, thats when I checked out the books. Hemu was a hero Marathas were heros, Axom was promoted by teachers. Always a war between Muslims and Hindus was promoted, even a 3rd grade Muslim student at Baramali high knows that.
 
I have seen this in Lucknow text books from some of the best schools in Lucknow. Its history that suffers the worst. Basically Mughal history is blighted and abused while Marathas are promoted. Durranis are promoted as murderers while Muslims view them as heroes. Its unfortunate actually... both sides of history should be taught. I saw this article long time back:

Furthermore I went after this article, in 2006, thats when I checked out the books. Hemu was a hero Marathas were heros, Axom was promoted by teachers. Always a war between Muslims and Hindus was promoted.

I studied in CBSE, never came across your BS claims. Yes, Marathas are Hero for us because they fought against Aurangzeb.
 
Quality-wise you should not even compare indian textbooks with western.

The rest is possible. However were the highlighted in the textbook or was teacher's invention. If it was in textbooks could you point out which one?

Also Jinnah being in league with the british should not be mentioned, but jinnah was in clandestine communication with Churchill's secretary and never went to jail should be mentioned and left to interpretation :P

Well I somehow could... But it would be difficult as I'm talking about Pre 9th grade, when we used to have subjects like Geography and History. 10th grade onwards our course material dramatically shifts to IGCSE. But before that our Indian teachers squeeze in A LOT of Indian textbooks.
 
Also Jinnah being in league with the british should not be mentioned, but jinnah was in clandestine communication with Churchill's secretary and never went to jail should be mentioned and left to interpretation :P

Jinnah was one of the finest Barristors in the subcontinent or even in United Kingdom in that particular time. Which is one of the reason he never went to jail. Now you can interpret this as much as you like.
 
I studied in CBSE, never came across your BS claims. Yes, Marathas are Hero for us because they fought against Aurangzeb.

Thanks for proving. So Marathas as heroes and Mughals as villains should be taught and is perfectly okay in your opinion?

No they don't. My textbooks were absolutely clean and hardly ever had any opinions.

This is not a textbook, its Seventh-day Adventist Church guidebook. Its religion and yes that usually contains embarrassing stuff and its indeed taught that way :)

Then how were they "withdrawn"?

India textbook on 'lying, cheating meat-eaters' withdrawn
Cover of the textbook It is not known which schools have bought the book for their students
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Schoolbook attacks meat-eaters
McDonald's opens vegetarian venue

A controversial Indian school textbook which made derogatory remarks about meat-eaters has been withdrawn.

New Healthway, a book on hygiene and health aimed at 11 and 12 year-olds, said meat-eaters "easily cheat, lie, forget promises and commit sex crimes".

Its publisher, S Chand Group, said they were "shocked and saddened" by the incident and "it is highly regretted and we are emphatically apologetic".

The book would be referred to the author, it added.

"The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables," read a chapter in the book entitled Do We Need Flesh Food?

The chapter detailed the "benefits" of a vegetarian diet and went on to list "some of the characteristics" found among non-vegetarians.

"They easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes," it said.

The chapter, full of factual inaccuracies, referred to Eskimos (Inuit) as "lazy, sluggish and short-lived", because they lived on "a diet largely of meat".

It added: "The Arabs who helped in constructing the Suez Canal lived on wheat and dates and were superior to the beef-fed Englishmen engaged in the same work."

In a press release, the S Chand Group said the book was not a part of any curriculum or syllabus, but it was a part of "an extended learning series, which may be used by a school or students at their discretion".

It said a total of only 1,384 copies of the title were sold last year and only 70 copies were sold this year.

The publisher said it had "no intention whatsoever to hurt the sentiments of any individual or group" and that the title was being discontinued "with immediate effect".
 
Thanks for proving. So Marathas as heroes and Mughals as villains should be taught and is perfectly okay in your opinion?

I never said Mughals are villains, I said Aurangzeb was a villain. Aurangzeb even massacred Pashtuns.
 
Jinnah was one of the finest Barristors in the subcontinent or even in United Kingdom in that particular time. Which is one of the reason he never went to jail. Now you can interpret this as much as you like.

Jaswant Singh has some very strong insights on that Mr Fateh. Read the book to know why Jinnah did not go to jail unlike Gandhi. It was smart play by Jinnah. Your own author has exposed how India played a part in partition and mistreated a minority purposely.
 
Jaswant Singh has some very strong insights on that Mr Fateh. Read the book to know why Jinnah did not go to jail unlike Gandhi. It was smart play by Jinnah. Your own author has exposed how India played a part in partition and mistreated a minority purposely.

There are declassified telegrams between Viceroy in Delhi and Secretary of India in London which will give you insight why no Muslim League leader ever went to jail.
 
Jaswant Singh has some very strong insights on that Mr Fateh. Read the book to know why Jinnah did not go to jail unlike Gandhi. It was smart play by Jinnah. Your own author has exposed how India played a part in partition and mistreated a minority purposely.

Wait...Jaswanth Singh is my author..Ooo bhai i form Pakistan..:hitwall:
 
I never said Mughals are villains, I said Aurangzeb was a villain. Aurangzeb even massacred Pashtuns.

What about teaching both sides of the story. Aurungzeb was seen as a hero by a large number of Muslims. Atrocities were common in those times. Also Aurangzeb had a Durrani wife. But in either case for the wars he fought with them what about teaching both sides. Muslim and Hindu or Pashtun or mughal views will always differ.

Wait...Jaswanth Singh is my author..Ooo bhai i form Pakistan..:hitwall:

I couldn't find the post of @fateh71 so I replied to you and addressed Fateh, read the bold. Jaswant Singh is from India.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are declassified telegrams between Viceroy in Delhi and Secretary of India in London which will give you insight why no Muslim League leader ever went to jail.

We are going to find another constructed reality here..:raise:
 
What about teaching both sides of the story. Aurungzeb was seen as a hero by a large number of Muslims. Atrocities were common in those times. Also Aurangzeb had a Durrani wife. But in either case for the wars he fought with them what about teaching both sides. Muslim and Hindu or Pashtun or mughal views will always differ.



I couldn't find the post of @fateh71 so I replied to you and addressed Fateh, read the bold. Jaswant Singh is from India.

Let's not judge people from the middle ages from today's more enlightened times. I agree bud.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What about teaching both sides of the story. Aurungzeb was seen as a hero by a large number of Muslims. Atrocities were common in those times. Also Aurangzeb had a Durrani wife. But in either case for the wars he fought with them what about teaching both sides. Muslim and Hindu or Pashtun or mughal views will always differ.

What Aurangzeb did was nothing common in that time, he just quashed what Akbar has gained. He re-introduced Jaziya, stopped Hindus for constructing new temples or mending the old, destroyed temples and erected mosque over there and new burdensome taxes on Hindus. He may have Durrani wife(I don't know) but he committed genocide of Pashtuns.
 
Back
Top Bottom