Textbook Controversy

As the "seventh standard textbook" debate continues to rage like a wildfire across Kerala, how can ajayswami resist the temptation to put forward his own deliciously warped point of view? ;)

But first a translation of the offending passage, courtesy keralatips:
Headmaster : What is your name?
Child : Jeevan
Headmaster : What is your father’s name?
Child : Anvar Rasheed
Headmaster : What is your mother’s name?
Child : Lekshmi Devi
Headmaster (to parents) : What I should enter as child’s religion?
Parents : Leave it blank.
Headmaster : Caste?
Parents : Leave that also blank.
Headmaster : What happens if he wants a religion when he becomes an adult?
Parents : Let him choose the religion he wants.

Now this passage per se has nothing wrong with it; in fact, it provides a practical guideline for many parents whose interreligious/intercaste marriage has put them in a similar situation. Also it upholds the ideal of secularism as envisioned by India's founding fathers, as against the pseudo secularism that has actually been practised in independent Bharat (more on that later).

But my first question to those who wrote this textbook would be: "Would 12 year olds studying in class 7 be able to digest the rather idealistic message of this passage?" Or do they even need to? For most children these lines would only create an identity crisis, as they start questioning the need for following a religion ("If Jeeven has no religion, why should I have one?"), not realizing that whether they like it or not, the religious beliefs their parents have instilled in them since early childhood are an essential part of their psychological makeup without which they would end up lost and confused.

My second question: "Why does it always have to be Anvar Rasheed marrying Lekshmi Devi?" Why not have Anand Nair marrying Lateefa Biwi? Whether it is textbooks or novels or movies, the pseudo secular Mallu intellectuals always like to potray Hindu women falling in love with Muslim or Christian men and, unlike Lekshmi Devi, promptly converting to the husband's faith after marriage. Only in very rare cases (Padmapriya's character in the Sibi Malayil movie "Amritham" being a case in point) do we actually see Muslim girls falling in love with Hindu men and living as Hindus (as conversion is unfortunately not an option) in their husband's home after marriage.