Jawaharlal Nehru erased from Rajasthan's Class VIII Social Science textbook
The new edition only mentions Rajendra Prasad as India's first president and goes deeply into Sardar Patel's contribution to the country's unification.
The name of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, does not find any mention in the new Social Science textbook for Class VIII students of the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education, reported The Indian Express.
The textbook features other freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Veer Savarkar and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, but does not include Nehru and others from the Indian National Congress. The assassination of Gandhi by Nathuram Godse is also not mentioned, the English daily reported.
The new edition only mentions Rajendra Prasad as India's first president and goes deeply into Sardar Patel's contribution to the country's unification. The book was revised as part of “curriculum re-structuring” by the State Institute of Education Research and Training, according to the report.
Rajasthan School Education Minister Vasudev Devnani said that the syllabus is designed by an autonomous body and the government had nothing to do with it. Devnani had earlier said that the Rajasthan government is revising textbooks to ensure that “no Kanhaiya Kumar was born in the state”.
Rajasthan Congress President Sachin Pilot hit out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, saying, "This is taking saffronisation to the next level. The BJP's ideological bankruptcy has stooped to such levels that it is erasing the country’s first prime minister from school history books...We will oppose this attempt to alter the nation’s history."