Following uproar created by Muslim community and minority leaders, the Madhya Pradesh Government on Tuesday withdrew the controversial decision to introduce stories from the Bhagwad Gita in the State-funded schools and even madrassas.
The Government order of August 1 dictates a “chapter on Bhagwad Gita should be included in the textbook of general Hindi for Class III and IV, special English and special Urdu for Class 1 and II for the 2013-14 academic session”.
Earlier, minority leaders accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Government of saffronisation of Islamic centres of learning.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan conceded that the controversy created over inclusion of episodes of Bhagwad Gita in school syllabus for academic session 2013-14 was not proper. The Chief Minister said the notification that led to controversy has been withdrawn.
Terming it as totally ‘misleading and baseless’ that a Gita lesson had been included in school syllabus due to elections or religious consideration, the Madhya Pradesh Government clarified that it had also incorporated subjects of other religions in textbooks.
The State BJP Government had been drawing flak from the opposition Congress and various other quarters over its recent circular to introduce episodes from the sacred Bhagvad Gita even in the curriculum of Urdu schools from academic session 2013-14.
Slamming the Government move, opposition Congress on Monday alleged that the decision was taken at the behest of RSS and aimed at dividing society on communal lines to drive political mileage in the election year.
later, an official release issued here on Monday said that apart from Gita, project works have also been assigned to include subjects of other religions in school books. These include - life sketch of Paigambar Mohammad Sahib, Karbala incident, Guru Nanak Dev, Gautam Buddha, Mahavir Swami, Jesus Christ and Nawaz of Ajmer.
lessons, poems and information on Christmas, Bibi Fatima’s life sketch, Holi, Id, Diwali, Onam, Dusshera, Guru Parv and Mahavir Jayanti have also been included in school books of various classes, the release said.
In Urdu text books, only two messages of Gita have been included and none of them can be regarded as religious or communal in nature, the release added.
In its latest circular issued on August 1, Shivraj Singh Chouhan Government had decided to add one chapter each based on incidents from Bhagvad Gita in the textbooks of General Hindi prescribed to Class III to VIII, Special English and Special Urdu in Class I and II for this academic session.
The circular came within a month of a July 4 notification that a chapter based on incidents in Bhagvad Gita will be added to textbooks of Special Hindi prescribed to Class IX to Class XII and Special English in Class XI and XII for the academic session 2013-14.