California text book row: Muslims against Hindu-Jewish organizations

State Board of Education

California Department of Education

1430 N Street

Sacramento, CA 95814 

RE: Submission for agenda item 07: “History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, 2016 Revision: Public Hearing and Adoption.” 

Dear State Board of Education, 

As representatives and stakeholders in American Muslim policy we are concerned that the current California curriculum and the proposed edits reflect an inaccurate and biased narrative on our historical identity, contributions and legacy. Moreover such bias is likely to lay a foundation of anti-Muslim sentiments among the student populace eventually perpetuating the growing Islamophobia in our public discourse. 

In a time of profound challenges facing our nation, the participation of the Muslim community is critical, in preventing the institutionalization of anti-Muslim bigotry in our state and beyond. This is important for the sake of historical accuracy as well as to safeguard our children’s mental, emotional and physical well-being. California’s Muslim population is the largest in the nation and we are the community with the fastest growing number of children in its schools. Our children are being educated in a climate where they are most susceptible to attack and demoralization. The proposed edits to the framework are not only historically inaccurate they have the potential to further alienate our youth that are already in a vulnerable situation. 

In December 2014, Maliha Chowdhury, a senior at Ocean City High School in Ocean City, NJ took her own life after years of being bullied for being Muslim. She was routinely told that her family was to blame for 9/11 and that she was a terrorist. On one instance, her teacher also added to the bullying by saying that he â€œdidn’t feel safe around Muslims.”^1]

Unfortunately, Maliha’s story is part of a larger epidemic amongst Muslim children  nationwide. It is important to note that such bullying does happen in California Public Schools. Within the past 10 years, there has been a 660 percent increase in the number of Muslim teenagers, aged 13-18, calling the national suicide prevention hotline.

^[2]In California, 64 percent of Muslim students said they experienced bullying (more than twice the national average) and 28 percent said they experienced discrimination by a teacher or administrator. Among girls that wear the hijab (Muslim head covering), 29% said they experienced offensive touching or pulling off of the hijab.^3]

 This tragedy also informs us that the bombardment of prejudicial ideas, from media outlets to candidates in the Presidential election primaries has left no one immune.  Even the educators our children look up to are impacted by the hateful discourse. Therefore, the injection of Islamophobic content into the teacher's manuals would inflame how student discussions are framed. Students, teachers, and communities all suffer when the content is rigged to cause disruption. 

Contrary to the treatment given to other religions, Islam has been introduced in the curriculum primarily under a narrative of war and conquest. The curriculum text in its current form is prejudiced in its references to alleged forced conversions of non-Muslims to Islam, often when no such forced conversions are even reported in historical sources[4]. Likewise, the curriculum text completely obliterates the role played by United States’ foreign policy in funding extremist religious Muslim groups to achieve short term political objectives and advances the idea that religious extremism is to be found only among Muslims, placing the blame squarely on “Radical Islam”[5].

Only Islam is singled out when it comes to the study of religious nationalism even though Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army has killed tens of thousands of people in Africa in the name of Christian nationalism. Despite India being the second most populous country in the world, the dramatic rise of Hindu nationalism in that country and its violent consequences to religious minorities have been reduced to a passing reference in the curriculum under the religious nationalism section. Absent also is any mention of brutal Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar that has led the United Nations to declare the Muslim Rogingyas as being the world’s most persecuted minority

[6].

 It is disconcerting to see hundreds of edits submitted by groups and individuals that insert more Islamophobia into the already problematic California school curriculum. We are relieved that the IQC has rejected most of the polemical edits by individuals like Ms. Linda Sax. However, recommendations by Hindu nationalist groups, such as the Uberoi Foundation, that have been accepted by the IQC go above and beyond their community mandate to rectify portrayal of Hinduism. They have in fact inserted Islamophobic content into the curriculum. The Uberoi edits depict Islam as brutal, and Mughal rulers as a hegemonic occupying force in South Asian history. They discard all mention of religious accord and the coming together of traditions promoted by several Mughal rulers.

 The IQC’s process of strictly using the Uberoi Foundation’s manual of edits is even more problematic and lacks transparency. The Uberoi Foundation for Religious Studies, Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), and California Parents for Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM) are part of a Hindu nationalist network

[7]that have a well-known anti-minority agenda, particularly against Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Dalits and liberal Hindus. This network espouses the same agenda as the Hindu-nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India. The RSS seeks to undermine the pluralistic tapestry of South Asia, often through the use of violent means. It is useful to note that the same RSS was responsible for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi as well as the demolition of the 400 year-old Babri mosque. The organization was banned by the Indian government thrice on account of its violent activities. The Hindu Education Foundation, which played a key role in the curriculum review process, is publicly listed as a project of the RSS in the United States[8]. Moreover, the Chair of the Uberoi Foundation is also the president of the RSS branch in the United States[9]. 

These organizations’ undermining of historical accuracy to eliminate references to the painful reality of the Hindu caste system, the unique religious identity of Sikhism and the intentional distortion of South Asian Islamic history parallels the criminal historical erasure of identities taking place in India today by the Uberoi Foundation’s ideological allies in India; the BJP Hindu-nationalist government.

 Understanding the ideological underpinnings of the Uberoi Foundation and the affiliated network is necessary in order to understand the fierce rejection we voice about their suggested edits. Two years in office in India, the Hindu nationalist government has overseen an increase in communal violence against Dalits, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians

^[10]. It is led by a Prime Minister who is widely held responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Indian Muslims in 2002 and who was banned from the U.S. for 10 years for ”egregious violations of religious freedom,” before he became the Prime Minister of India.

 We question how “scholars” employed by the Uberoi Foundation have been given any credibility to make suggestions about South Asian history, given their lack of intellectual prominence. Academic charlatans with known political agendas cannot be taken seriously when the information being contested is of great importance and the consequences of not being able to navigate it equitably will have grave implications.

 This is in contrast to the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) that consists of scholars that have provided in-depth analysis and historical objectivity and are some of the world’s brightest minds in the field of South Asian studies. These scholars have supported historical research that neither diminishes nor exalts the complexity inherent in South Asian history. They represent the top academic programs in the nation from UCLA, Berkeley, USC, Princeton, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and have written extensively to bring to the fore accurate information as it relates to South Asia to ensure the preservation of history in California’s History / Social Science curriculum.

 The Hindu fundamentalist network attempts to eliminate the tremendous diversity of the subcontinent and monopolize who has the right to a voice from the region and who doesn’t by mowing over the identities of Dalits, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians from the region. In this battle, it is tragic that the IQC has chosen to give precedence to this network in their blanket use of India over the term South Asia; thereby, eliminating the presence of the entire area of what today comprises of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We emphatically contest the use of India over South Asia, especially for histories that are situated outside the geo-political boundaries of the contemporary Indian state. In so doing, the IQC has given credence to a key Hindu nationalist political agenda of Akhanda Bharat (“Greater India”) that aims to politically appropriate all of South Asia under Hindu rule.

 We urge the State Board of Education to rectify the procedural lapses of the IQC to not allow groups with ideological ties to foreign supremacist and racist movements to dictate how history is taught in California’s culturally diverse schools.

 Appendix A lists the edits that are problematic and recommendations of the Muslim Studies Faculty Group that are supported by the undersigned as well as the broader South Asian Histories For All (SAHFA) coalition. The Muslim Studies Faculty Group comprises of scholars specializing in the study of Islam and Muslim societies and includes eminent experts such as Dr. Bill Graham, a distinguished professor on Middle East Studies at Harvard who served as the Dean of Harvard Divinity School and Dr. John Esposito, a world renowned expert on Islam and Muslim societies at Georgetown. 

The undersigned organizations include some of the largest Muslim organizations in North America and the California federations collectively represent the majority of Muslims in the state of California.

 Thank you. 

Undersigned: 

1.      Islamic Society of North America (National) 

2.      Islamic Circle of North America (National) 

3.      Northern California Islamic Council (NCIC) – A federation of Mosques and Muslim organizations of Northern California 

4.      Islamic Shura Council of Southern California – A federation of Mosques and Muslim organizations of Southern California 

5.      Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York â€“ A federation of Mosques and Muslim organizations of New York 

6.      The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC) - A federation of Mosques and Muslim organizations of Greater Chicago 

7.      Muslim Community Association (MCA) 

8.      South Bay Islamic Association (SBIA) 

9.      West Valley Muslim Association (WVMA) 

10.  Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) 

11.  American Muslim Voice Foundation (AMV Foundation) 

12.  Islamic Scholarship Fund (ISF) 

13.  American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) 

14.  Islamic Circle of North America â€“ SF Bay Area 

15.  Justice for All 

16.  Islamophobia Studies Center