‘No meat and eggs’: Karnataka group accuses NCERT of saffronizing Kannada class 6 textbook ‘Krishna’

A Karnataka-based education rights group has accused the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) of trying to favor the curriculum through its new Class 6 Kannada textbook, Krishna.The organisation, People’s Alliance for Fundamental Rights in Education (PAFRE), has demanded that the book be withdrawn from the current academic year’s syllabus, alleging that it promotes religious themes while neglecting Karnataka’s cultural identity and diverse food habits.In a statement, PAFRE Principal Coordinator Niranjanaradhya VP said the textbook reflected a wider trend of introducing mythology and religious themes in school education under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. “This is nothing more than a project to saffronize the curriculum”, he claimed.The group also questioned NCERT’s decision to name the textbook Krishna. According to PAFRE, Karnataka’s cultural identity is closely linked to literary and social reform figures like Adikavi Pampa, Kuvempu, Kota Shivaram Karanth and Basavanna.“Karnataka’s identity is rooted in the ideas and contributions of great poets and reformers like Adikavi Pampa, Kuvempu, Kota Shivaram Karanth and Basavanna. However, NCERT has chosen the name ‘Krishna’,” the organization said.PAFRE also criticized a lesson on nutrition, claiming it promotes a vegetarian view of a balanced diet and leaves out foods commonly eaten across the state.“The dish shown in the lesson contains only ragi mudde, roti, rice, vegetables, milk and fruits, while fish, eggs and meat are completely absent,” he alleged.The organization said this presents a limited picture of Karnataka’s food culture and questioned whether communities consuming pork curry, fish curry and keema balls had been ignored.It is also claimed that the textbook presents vegetarian food as the only marker of a balanced diet. “By portraying only vegetarian food as balanced, politics is being pushed onto children’s plates. This is not education; it is cultural terrorism,” the group alleged.PAFRE further stated that the textbook does not adequately represent the folklore, literature and lifestyles of different regions of Karnataka, including Coastal Karnataka, North Karnataka, Malnad and Old Mysuru region.The organization has asked CBSE to withdraw the textbook from the Class 6 syllabus this academic year and urged NCERT to explain in writing why the book was named Krishna.It has also sought the inclusion of references to eggs, fish and meat in the chapter on balanced diets, questioned the exclusion of the state’s Department of Educational Research and Training (DSERT) from the textbook-making process and called for the book to be renamed to better reflect Karnataka’s identity.