The dust has settled. The Indian leadership and the UMNO politicians had met and came to an agreement that the offensive section of the book, 'Interlok' will be edited and if necessary removed so as to mitigate the unpleasantness and ill-feeling among the people of the country.
In my opinion, I am not too sure it is the best of wisdom to change the opinions of the book's author who through his conviction at the time of writing 40 years ago might have strong belief that what he wrote actually represented the 'right and real' situation as he saw fit.
I am not too sure it is the right thing to do to seek the consent of the author to review and edit his book. By so doing, it will have a psychological impact of the morality of the author. Any amendment implies that what he wrote was morally wrong and that he had to change so as to suit the school children.
The matter is settled. But perhaps the educationists should learn a lesson from this exercise and to ensure that such a situation should not happen in the future.
If I may suggest, there should be a multi-racial committee within the education ministry comprising experts, academicians and communal leaders to go through any proposed school texts and submit their opinion and recommendations to the Education Ministry for his decision. In this way, there is less likelihood and an assurance that a situation like Interlok might not recur in the future.
A solution to the Interlok dilemma is to withdraw the book and choose a more appropriate book for usage by school children. Any book for its suitability must satisfy certain basic criteria such as: comprehensiveness, updatedness, free from ambiguities, racialistic overtures, religious biasedness and social prejudice etc.
Those in the committee must be people who should be aware their important role that whatever they recommend will have a profound effect on the minds of the young school children.
Let us ensure that we do not make a boo-boo in the near future.
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