When Abhijit Kurup began learning about Hinduism at his Claremont middle school, he could barely recognize his own religion.
Textbooks portrayed the 6,000-year-old tradition as a religion of monkey and elephant gods, rigid caste discrimination and oppression of women, he said.
"It degraded my religion," said Kurup, now a UC Riverside freshman. "I felt a mixture of anger, embarrassment and humiliation."
Kurup has joined other Hindus in a campaign urging the state Board of Education to correct those portrayals in new sixth-grade history textbooks, which will come under review by a board committee today. They have requested changes involving passages on women's rights, the caste system, the origins of Hinduism and the nature of the divine, among other things.
One requested change, for instance, would say women had "different" rights than men, not fewer.
But their efforts have sparked a heated counter-campaign by scholars and others who accuse the groups of trying to fabricate history and gloss over the treatment of women and minorities in India, where Hinduism is the dominant religion. Some also contend that the requested textbook changes are so similar to those imposed by Hindu nationalist groups in India that California should not put its stamp of approval on them.
As a result, what began as a quiet academic exercise has exploded into a vitriolic debate stretching across the globe, with partisans exchanging charges of religious bigotry and promoting right-wing political agendas.
Harvard University professor Michael Witzel, for instance, has warned that the California school board will set off an "international educational scandal" if it approves the requested changes. "It would install mythology as history and get a right-wing point of view" into the textbooks, said Witzel, a professor of Sanskrit.
Such comments outrage many Hindu community members. They say they are merely seeking a fair and accurate portrayal of their religion and culture, which many believe has been maligned in the West ever since British colonialists invaded India more than two centuries ago.
"This is the first time Hindu groups are trying to protest against 300 years of prejudice," said Madhulika Singh, a Bay Area computer networking specialist. She says her son told her he didn't want to be Hindu anymore after studying ancient India and Hinduism in sixth grade.
