Bitter controversies over history textbooks are not limited to Japan, where recent government approval of a new volume has provoked an uproar in South Korea and China, and, although with a more muted response, in Southeast Asia. In India, the government's effort to foist Hinduism on educational institutions has engendered severe criticism, too.
The 19-member coalition government in New Delhi, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is accused of attempting to propagate Hindutva or Hinduism through the corridors of learning and aiming to convert the most impressionable sections of society into die-hard believers.
Admittedly, most of the boys and girls targeted are Hindus, and in India, this creed has always predominated over Islam, Buddhism and others. But, for some years now, religion has hardly been a potent force in a nation of 1 billion people. Their immediate focus is on elevating their standard of living through economic reform, education and globalization -- liberal and universal concepts that the more hawkish elements in the BJP reject.