Amidst the political hullabaloo over the removal of chapter on prominent leaders of Haryana from textbooks, the Manohar lal Khattar Government was caught on the back foot on Tuesday.
The Cabinet Ministers in Manohar lal Khattar Government were seen issuing statements on the issue in an attempt to defend the BJP Government’s decision to remove the chapter that
highlighted achievements of prominent leaders like Sir Chotu Ram, Ranbir Singh Hooda, Devi lal and Bansi lal from textbooks.
After a meeting of Cabinet Ministers held under Chief Minister Manohar lal on Tuesday, Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma claimed that the names of prominent leaders have not been deleted from the textbooks.
Even as the textbooks have already been published, the Education Minister while talking to the mediapersons claimed that the students will read about these prominent leaders. “NCERT had suggested deleting these names from textbooks but the State Government had rejected the proposal,” he said. No prominent leader’s name has been deleted from the textbooks, he claimed.
Even the Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar announced that the Cabinet has decided to retain the name of legendary farmer leader Sir Chhotu Ram in the textbooks. The Minister announced this through this Twitter account following the meeting of cabinet ministers.
The statements by Cabinet Ministers came at a time when the textbooks have already been published and distributed to various schools in Haryana. The Ministers, however, did not comment on how the State Government would make changes in the already
published textbooks.
Many prominent Haryana leaders like Sir Chhotu Ram, former deputy Prime Minister Devi lal, ex-CM Bhupinder Hooda’s father Ranbir Hooda and other personalities were the part of a chapter titled ‘Haryana ke Gaurav’ in a class V Hindi textbook that has been removed by the BJP led State Government from this academic session. ‘Haryana ke Gaurav’ was introduced in the textbook during the tenure of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the year 2011.
Another chapter titled ‘Gaurav Gatha’ in class IV, was instead introduced, which contains achievements of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhagat Singh, lala lajpat Rai and lokmanya Tilak to name a few.
Apart from this, a chapter on Gita has also been added in the textbooks of moral science for the students of classes VI to VIII in the State. A day before, both opposition parties, Congress and INlD had criticized BJP Government’s move to remove the chapter titled ‘Haryana ke Gaurav’.
leader of opposition in Haryana Assembly and senior INlD leader Abhay Singh Chautala had alleged that “BJP is enforcing the saffron agenda… The ruling party is tampering with the history of the state as they have removed the names of prominent leaders who had contributed to the development of Haryana”.
On the other hand, Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar had questioned the priorities of State Government saying that lakhs of people are suffering due to acute water shortage in the State and BJP is busy in spending Rs 50 crore on 'Saraswati Revival Project' and making changes in textbooks to promote their agenda.