08-18-2006, 02:02 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mischief afoot </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Propaganda as textbooks
<b>In the guise of "connecting knowledge with real life situations", propagandists of the Congress masquerading as academicians are planning to feed young, impressionable minds with monumental lies by including them in NCERT textbooks.</b> It is amazing that Mr Yogendra Yadav, a self-proclaimed psephologist who is seen more on television channels unabashedly plumbing for the Congress and the Left or pushing the case of caste over merit, and whose academic credentials would impress only his political benefactors like Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, has been assigned the task of 'chief adviser' to the panel that is responsible for re-writing NCERT textbooks, thus putting a big question mark over the future of education in this country.<b> Given the fact that a person of such dubious repute shall lay down the guidelines, it is not surprising that children will be fed with Congress-sanitised versions of what Mr Yadav has the audacity to describe as the "truth" about the 2004 riot in Gujarat, the Ayodhya dispute and the 1984 pogrom against Sikhs. We can take it for granted that what will appear in print in political science textbooks will be no different from the contents of Congress or CPI(M) pamphlets that paint the BJP in the bleakest of colours while celebrating recalcitrant Islamism; we can also be sure that what our children will be told about the horrendous massacre of Sikhs by mobs encouraged, if not led, by Congress leaders after Indira Gandhi's assassination shall be more than a shade different from the truth.</b> Nor should we have any doubts about the wondrous things that will be listed as "achievements" of Mrs Gandhi's Emergency that saw the ruthless suppression of civil liberties and democratic rights. After all, as Mr Yadav has explained, the material for these events will be culled from Government sources - in other words, from Congress propaganda archives. To add a touch of authenticity, Mr Yadav and his cohorts will cite from the perverse report on the Godhra carnage prepared by Justice Banerjee at the behest of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav which was used as publicity material along with posters of the RJD's first couple to woo Muslim voters during last year's Bihar Assembly election. The textbooks conceived by cronies of the regime of the day, of course, will maintain a silence over the Nellie massacre, the Bhagalpur and Kalupur riots, Operation Bluestar, the torching of Ananda Marg monks in Kolkata, the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir valley, the genocide against Kashmiri Pandits, the insidious spread of Islamic fanaticism and similar acts of omission and commission committed by the Congress and its Communist allies. Connection with "real life situations" indeed!
This vile mischief must be nipped in the bud before it is too late. We cannot allow classrooms to be converted into party propaganda centres; that may have been fashionable in the USSR, but in democratic India it is unacceptable. This paper has repeatedly asserted that the writing of history and textbooks should be taken out of the vicious control of Government and left to qualified academicians with unimpeachable credentials. Till such time this is done, charlatans who are dependent on Government largesse and political patronage shall continue to poison the minds of our children, denying them the right to think freely and to choose fact over fiction
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Propaganda as textbooks
<b>In the guise of "connecting knowledge with real life situations", propagandists of the Congress masquerading as academicians are planning to feed young, impressionable minds with monumental lies by including them in NCERT textbooks.</b> It is amazing that Mr Yogendra Yadav, a self-proclaimed psephologist who is seen more on television channels unabashedly plumbing for the Congress and the Left or pushing the case of caste over merit, and whose academic credentials would impress only his political benefactors like Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, has been assigned the task of 'chief adviser' to the panel that is responsible for re-writing NCERT textbooks, thus putting a big question mark over the future of education in this country.<b> Given the fact that a person of such dubious repute shall lay down the guidelines, it is not surprising that children will be fed with Congress-sanitised versions of what Mr Yadav has the audacity to describe as the "truth" about the 2004 riot in Gujarat, the Ayodhya dispute and the 1984 pogrom against Sikhs. We can take it for granted that what will appear in print in political science textbooks will be no different from the contents of Congress or CPI(M) pamphlets that paint the BJP in the bleakest of colours while celebrating recalcitrant Islamism; we can also be sure that what our children will be told about the horrendous massacre of Sikhs by mobs encouraged, if not led, by Congress leaders after Indira Gandhi's assassination shall be more than a shade different from the truth.</b> Nor should we have any doubts about the wondrous things that will be listed as "achievements" of Mrs Gandhi's Emergency that saw the ruthless suppression of civil liberties and democratic rights. After all, as Mr Yadav has explained, the material for these events will be culled from Government sources - in other words, from Congress propaganda archives. To add a touch of authenticity, Mr Yadav and his cohorts will cite from the perverse report on the Godhra carnage prepared by Justice Banerjee at the behest of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav which was used as publicity material along with posters of the RJD's first couple to woo Muslim voters during last year's Bihar Assembly election. The textbooks conceived by cronies of the regime of the day, of course, will maintain a silence over the Nellie massacre, the Bhagalpur and Kalupur riots, Operation Bluestar, the torching of Ananda Marg monks in Kolkata, the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir valley, the genocide against Kashmiri Pandits, the insidious spread of Islamic fanaticism and similar acts of omission and commission committed by the Congress and its Communist allies. Connection with "real life situations" indeed!
This vile mischief must be nipped in the bud before it is too late. We cannot allow classrooms to be converted into party propaganda centres; that may have been fashionable in the USSR, but in democratic India it is unacceptable. This paper has repeatedly asserted that the writing of history and textbooks should be taken out of the vicious control of Government and left to qualified academicians with unimpeachable credentials. Till such time this is done, charlatans who are dependent on Government largesse and political patronage shall continue to poison the minds of our children, denying them the right to think freely and to choose fact over fiction
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