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The government was involved in an ugly controversy when the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, made a state government recommendation that Ramayana Mahabharata, the holiest of Hindu texts, be read daily in schools and colleges to 'instil values and morality' in children. The chief minister has since said that he meant no disrespect to the Hindu religion or to the Mahabharata but that the text should be interpreted in a way that suited India and Indians.
Reddy was accused by some members of the All India Democratic Women's Association of using the Mahabharata to attack the practices of other religions, such as female infanticide, child marriage and dowry. The government was also criticised for going ahead with the recommendation, after it had consulted both Hindu and Muslim religious scholars.
While Reddy had said that he had not meant to insult either the Mahabharata or the other religious books of Hinduism, he did go on to say that he had not meant it when he was so irresponsible as to start this controversy in the first place.
"The prime minister is also a Hindu, isn't he?" said Reddy. "And when he was concerned over what should be read in our schools, he was told by the mahant [head of a temple] that he should read the Puranas and not the Bhagavad Gita because only a wise person should do so. But he didn't do it. So we must start with our own mahant. I would do it myself, but I can't read Sanskrit."
Reddy's comments made it clear that the prime minister had not been given a single concrete example of any adult failing to understand a portion of the Mahabharata in a way that was damaging to India. And yet, he continued, it was "unfair" of other people to say that the government was not sensitive to Indian religions and that the Mahabharata should only be read in some way because the prime minister "understood it".
This is a new development in Indian politics. This is not just a protest against the RSS, the arch-nationalist, ultra-conservative wing of Hinduism that the Mahabharata is the traditional military hymn of
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