StudentsPledge News Dt 17.05.2022 – In another instance of syllabus alteration, the present BJP-ruled Karnataka State Government has omitted a lesson on great revolutionary Bhagat Singh and another on Vivekananda’s humanist thoughts from school textbooks, and has, instead, introduced a speech of K.B.Hedgewar. Strongly denouncing this decision, Sourav Ghosh, General Secretary, AIDSO has made the following statement to the press:
“It is an eye-opener to the entire country that the party in power, which claims to be the champion of patriotism, has omitted a lesson on great revolutionary who sacrificed his life at the age of 23, Bhagat Singh from the 10th standard Kannada textbook and has introduced in its place, a speech of K.B. Hedgewar, the founder of RSS and a man who in the later period of his life, had turned his back on the freedom movement. Further, in the same book, a lesson depicting the anti-communal and humanist ideas of Vivekananda, has also been removed. Apart from this, a lesson which condemns racial hatred, “mruga mattu sundari” of P. lankesh and many other such valuable lessons like Sara Abubakar’s “Yuddha” and A N Murthi Rao’s “Vyaghrageethe” have been removed! We condemn this move in strongest possible words.
This is not an isolated instance. Earlier, several times such changes have been brought. A few days back, CBSE changed its syllabus, thus, bringing down an attack on the secular and democratic framework of contents in the school syllabus. Celebrated nazms by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a revolutionary poet who had always wrote for the people in distress, have been removed from the textbook. Before that, a story of Premchand was removed from the XIIth std. textbook. And there are many more such instances. In fact, all political parties that have ruled so far, have been working out their own agendas through the academic text books.
It is painful, though not shocking, for the people of this country who can clearly see through the communal, undemocratic and anti-people character of the present dispensation. This change in Kannada Board textbook makes it clear that the ruling BJP government and the Sangh Parivar have no regard for the great revolutionaries of the country’s independence movement, including Bhagat Singh. It also unveils their ideology, and their complete disregard to the dreams of renaissance movement and the freedom fighters of our country who had fought to establish a scientific, secular and democratic education system in this country.
We call upon the saner section of the society in general and the students community of this country in particular, to resist such fascist move. We demand that the texts removed, be immediately added and that the induction of unscientific, undemocratic and unsecular thoughts into textbooks be stopped.”
