Thiruvananthapuram, July 23 (Inditop.com) The entire Kerala opposition walked out of the assembly Thursday, protesting that the class 7 social studies textbook contains more about Communist-led agitations than the Independence struggle.
Raising the issue, Congress’ Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said it was appalling to note that the textbook, which was revised in the last academic year after a lot of protests, had become even worse.
He said important events in the country’s Independence struggle like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Malabar wagon tragedy, the Salt Satyagraha led by Gandhiji, and the letter of Bhagat Singh have all been left out and in their place, struggles of Communists like Kayoor and information about Communist leader A.K. Gopalan find mention.
Law Minister M. Vijayakumar, who replied in absence of Education Minister M.A. Baby, said the government will look into all the creative suggestions put up by the opposition in this regard.
He also noted that none of these incidents find mention in the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook for class 7, prepared by the central government, though its has two chapters on the country’s independence struggle.
“In fact, our social studies book has much more,” said Vijayakumar.
The opposition also protested the absence of the education minister, with Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy expressing his dissatisfaction and claiming the minister might be purposely staying away to avoid answering questions on this issue.
Chandy said it is a grave crime being done by distorting the real facts of the independence struggle from the new generation of students.
“No wonder because of such things, it has come to light that compared to last year, this year there has been a drop of 1.75 lakh (175,000) students who preferred to study in private schools and not in the state run and state aided schools. Please make arrangements to see that the error is rectified immediately,” said Chandy as he led opposition members out of the house.
