Rajasthan government promises to rectify anomalies in maps in old school books

At a time when the Rajasthan government announced omitting out several topic added by the earlier Bharatiya Janata Party government in the Rajasthan Board of secondary education textbooks, the tussle between the BJP and Congress has increased over the issues of parts of Kashmir region being cut away from the maps of India in these text books along with indicating Sikkim as a different country in ten maps of class 9 social science textbooks.

It has come to light that some parts of Kashmir region have been cut from two maps depicting minerals and energy resources in a chapter in class 10 social science textbook.

Moreover, Sikkim has not been denoted as a part of India, but rather as a different country in ten maps of the class 9 social science textbook.

Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasra said that the review committee report for school textbooks is still awaited and the matter will be resolved in the new textbooks.

“The changes were made in the syllabus in a hurry and with lack of thoughtfulness (by the BJP government). There were several mistakes which the review committee took into consideration to resolve. We’ll correct the mistakes. The report of the committee is however awaited,” said Dotasra.

The other changes made in the syllabus which are also confirmed by the present Congress government include, omitting chapters related toVeer Damodar Savarkar (the prefix ‘Veer’ was axed and Savarkar referred to as conspirator) and Deen Dayal Upadhyay, omitting a photograph depicting Jauhar from class 8 textbook, creating a vague ending for the battle of Haldighati in which none of the two leaders i.e. Akbar and Maharana Pratap has been indicated as the winner and omitting the topic related to demonetisation.