Jeevan the What??

        The mallu in me keeps nagging me to write something on the textbook crisis in Kerala. This issue has already spawned hartals,bandhs, marches, strikes and what not besides tons of righteous indignation both online and off. Considering my inclinations and background I too am supposed to write a flaming post and dispatch a lot of forwards but there are times when you feel like you and your "dialogue-partner" are too far apart. You cannot even agree to disagree. So I shall restrain myself to providing links to some of the debates/outbursts. :P

Here's C.Gouridasan Nair at the Hindu. Here is his translation of the controversial chapter. Notice that the lesson is translated as "Jeevan the casteless" instead of "Jeevan the one who does not follow any religion".

Here's an article from "Pragoti" which goes into some detail on the merits of the textbook

An acquaintance who is obviously a strong Party supporter
to
BVN as usual is tongue and cheek.

A very bad attempt at being neutral.

The most intriguing one of them all. The blogger first posits that there is nothing objectionable in the controversial chapter. However in the next post, he studies the rest of the text and comes up with certain objections.

If you have already noticed that I haven't expressed my own view yet, I shall shield myself by emphasizing the fact that I haven't seen the entire book :P. However from what I have seen online..what terrible artwork!!

(HT:Alex for most of these links :)