The National Steering Committee on Textbook Evaluation
appointed by the NCERT itself, concluded that’the main purpose which
these books would serve is to gradually transform the young children into
bigoted morons in the garb of instilling in them patriotism’1.Dinanath
Batra,suggested the book The Hindus and to withdraw Penguin’s
American scholar Wendy Doniger’s work.2.In
the suggested one minorities were portrayed as main problems of the nation and
Muslims,Christians and Parsis referred to as foreigners,where struggle for
freedom was portrayed as war against the Muslims;all done in the name of
instilling nationalism and national pride3.
In the just-released text book of Class 10 RBSE, Hindutva ideologue Veer
Savarkar described as a great revolutionary and patriot.Savarkar was charged for
the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but exonerated because no corroborative
evidence of his involvement was furnished.It helped create the myth of Savarkar
‘the brave’,as book lauds’lifelong sacrifices’calls it’beyond words’.While the
book finds mention of non-cooperation, civil disobedience and the Quit India
movements,it finds little space for Mahatma Gandhi,the man behind them all4.Similarly,in
political science text book for Class 11,Congress has been described as a ‘nurtured
baby of the British empire. It says: “the party was established by the
capitalists and representatives of the upper middle class.”5

While foreign authors
were axed at the cost of including Gita in the course of Commerce department,History
department too included a book in its bibliography’Maharana Pratap aur
Haldighati Ka Yudh,’which claims that Maharana Pratap defeated Akbar.6The
iconic’Tryst with Destiny’speech of Jawaharlal Nehru was removed from the
revised social science textbook for Class 8 while Vasudev Devnani held office.To
rub salt into the wound, a chapter on Indira Gandhi’s Emergency period during
1975-77 was incorporated into the school syllabus vilify Congress.7

 Iconography another attmpt at saffronisation.New
text books teach that lotus is a symbol of victory.The saffron touch becomes
literal with the orange colour of cycles distributed to school students and the
newly introduced coffee colour of school uniform8.The
libraries have been asked to buy complete volumes of Pandit Deen Dayal
Upadhyay’s biography and works9.Call it
saffronisation,communalisation or politicisation of education,the basic fact
remains that young minds are increasingly becoming laboratories for
fundamentalists and extremists propagating their views and ideologies,the
innocent minds get fashioned in the beliefs which are inculcated in them and the
result is creation of a generation which is fed half baked truths,misrepresented
facts and distorted history.