Jawaharlal Nehru Removed From Class VIII Textbook In Rajasthan
Jawaharlal Nehru who? The new Social Science
textbook for Class VIII in schools of Rajasthan has erased Nehru from the pages
of history. It does not mention who India’s first Prime Minister was. Not yet available in
the market but uploaded on the website of publisher Rajasthan Rajya
Pathyapustak Mandal — http://www.rstbraj.in —
the textbook features Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Veer Savarkar,
Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and revolutionary Hemu
Kalani but is silent on Nehru and other Congress freedom
fighters. There is also no mention of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by
Nathuram Godse.
Meant for use in
schools of the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education, the textbook revision
has been carried out as part of “curriculum re-structuring” by the State
Institute of Education Research and Training (SIERT), Udaipur. In the previous
edition of the textbook, the chapter on National Movement had Nehru prominently
in a box titled Major Leaders of National Movement. Again, the chapter on India
After Independence, in the earlier edition, began with the contribution of
Nehru and Sardar Patel to government formation.
In the new chapter on
National Movement, there is no mention of Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Madan Mohan
Malviya or other freedom fighters. The chapter on post-independence India is
again silent on Nehru. It mentions Rajendra Prasad as the first president and
describes in detail the contribution of Sardar Patel to the unification of
India. Asked about the
omission of Nehru, School Education Minister Vasudev Devnani told The Sunday
Express: “The government and I have nothing to do with it. I am yet to see the
new textbooks. The syllabus is created by an autonomous body and the government
does not interfere in it at all.”
Devnani had recently
said that the Rajasthan government was re-designing textbooks to ensure “no
Kanhaiya Kumar was born in the state”. He had also said that he wanted the
curriculum to have a three-pronged effect: teach the child about the ‘veer’ and
‘veerangana’ of Rajasthan; make the child proud of Indian culture; and, create
an ideal citizen and a patriot. Devnani had said that
Mughal emperor Akbar would be taught without the suffix ‘Great’, which would be
used to describe Maharana Pratap. The change is reflected in the Class VII
textbook for medieval history.
The foreword by the
SIERT Director in the new Social Science textbook thanks UNICEF for financial
and technical assistance. The history section has been written by a team of
eight authors, most of them senior teachers and principals from government
schools. The team is headed by Brajmohan Ramdev, retired district literacy
officer (Jaisalmer), and includes Dr S K Gupta, retired professor, Mohanlal
Sukhadia University, Udaipur.
Reacting to the
omission of Nehru from the textbook, Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot
told The Sunday Express: “This is taking saffronisation to the next level. The BJP’s ideological bankruptcy has
stooped to such levels that it is erasing the country’s first Prime Minister
from school history books. But they should know that this does not mean they
can erase Nehru’s memory and his contribution from the nation’s collective
conscience. We will oppose this attempt to alter the nation’s history.”
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/jawaharlal-nehru-erased-from-rajasthan-school-textbook-2789754/