Nehru removed from Rajasthan school textbook

Mangalore Today/ PTI

Rajasthan, May 08: 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.”