Government denies, but chapters removed

At the centre of the controversy regarding deletion of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s reference from school books, education minister Vasudev Devnani has described the allegations as baseless.

“Critics should have first read the books before making allegations. Nehru’s name has been mentioned on two pages 91 and 177 just as it was before,” he said while calling the criticism a way to get cheap publicity. Mr Devnani is technically correct as Nehru’s name does appear on those pages but very briefly.

But more importantly, what Mr Devnani, who came into the BJP via the RSS, has conveniently skipped is another move by his government of removing chapters written by the first Prime Minister from the revised textbooks. Earlier, they were part of Class 11 textbooks.

The chapter titled “Bharat-Mata” taught in the Hindi textbook for Class 11, taken from Nehru’s Discovery of India, has been now axed.

Besides, in the new chapters on post-Independence India for the class VII refrains from making any mention of Nehru even as it mentions Rajendra Prasad as the first President of India, and dwells on the role of Sardar Patel in the country’s unification process.

Devnani who held the same portfolio in the previous tenure of chief minister Vasundhara Raje had made his intentions clear when he ordered revision of textbooks for government schools immediately after getting the education department once again. Ever since he took over, he has been saying that school children should know that Maharana Pratap was great not the Mughal emperor Akbar.

During the Budget Session of the state Assembly a couple of months ago in his reply to demands of his department, Devnani had created controversy by saying that syllabus in school and colleges would be changed so that “no one like Kanhaiya Kumar is born” in Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the Congress has declared that it will hold a demonstration on Tuesday to protest against the move to omit details of the contribution of the Prime Minister.