After Veer Savarkar, Rajasthan govt removes references to demonetisation from school textbooks
After Veer Savarkar, Rajasthan govt removes references to demonetisation from school textbooks
The Congress government in Rajasthan has removed references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drastic 2016 note ban decision from school textbooks of Class 12. According to a report in The Indian Express, the revised textbooks of political science will available in the market from the current academic session.
Rajasthan Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara said the demonetisation decision was the most unsuccessful experiment of the government and the objectives narrated by PM Modi couldn’t be achieved. “The three objectives the Prime Minister had mentioned for demonetisation — end of terrorism, corruption and bringing back black money couldn’t be achieved and the public was forced to stand in line. It also put a burden of more than Rs 10,000 crore on the country,” the minister told the daily.
In 2017, the then BJP government headed by Vasundhara Raje had added a portion on demonetisation in the political science textbook of Class 12. The textbook had termed the Modi government’s decision to demonetise high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from the economy as historic and an operation to fight black money.
The Education minister also informed that a picture depicting women committing johar (a centuries-old practice where Rajput women committed suicide with their children and valuables in a massive fire to avoid assault by invaders) has been removed from the Class 8 English textbook. Dotasara said that the government realised it was inappropriate that today’s women read textbooks which carry pictures of women committing self-immolation.
The latest development comes close on the heels of his announcement that the Ashok Gehlot government will review portions in textbooks that “glorify” RSS ideologue Veer Savarkar. He said that the government will include a reference to Savarkar on how he freed himself by pleading to be British.
Dotasara alleged that the previous BJP government was fulfilling its own political interests and had made changes by distorting history. He said that the Congress government believes that the new generation should learn correct history and not lessons of any particular political ideology.
The BJP, on the other hand, has hit back at Congress and accused it of ignoring patriots who have been associated with Hindutva. The Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan had in February set up two review committees to review the changes brought by the BJP government in school textbooks.
