The newly elected Congress Government in Rajasthan has decided to review textbooks, reference material revised by the previous BJP Government.
On Saturday Minister of State for School Education Govind Singh Dotasara said that roles of freedom fighters and national icons will be given due respect and space in the textbooks for their reputation to be restored since it was absent in the previous regime’s revised curriculum.
He stressed that the roles and sacrifices of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi lost their reference into the textbooks, in order to restore that this decision has been taken.
“The government will review textbooks and other reference material that were revised by the BJP government,” he said.
He also added that the officers of the department are already instructed to prepare a report on the revision of textbooks.
“We are committed to removing the objectionable references and chapters preaching bigotry and falsehood to young students,” he said.
He stressed that the BJP Government’s changes into the system included, providing saffron colored bicycles to the students, posting RSS-affiliated officers in various Boards and Councils and changing the curriculum with the distortion of history. He also ensured that the changes that the BJP Government made will be reviewed.
The curriculum was restructured by the State Institute of Educational Research under the leadership of Vasundhara Raje Scindia, the then Chief Minister of Rajasthan. The main emphasis was on slashing the contributions of Congress Leaders of the Independence Era, with no reference to Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Madan Mohan Malviya, and others either.
The then Education Minister Vasudev Devnani carried forward the agenda of restructuring by making changes in the medieval history and the textbooks were re-written with focus on ‘Indian Culture’.
The Congress had severely criticized the decisions of the then ruling BJP and described its acts as “saffronisation of the education system”.