Jalandhar April 9 : Criticising the changes made in the textbooks by the NCERT, the Mahila Kisan Union has alleged that the misrepresentation and distortion of history carried at the behest of right wing outfits are against the constitutional ethos, expose a divisive and partisan agenda which should be withdrawn immediately and rectified in right prospective.
Intensely accusing and holding accountable both the prime minister Narendra Modi and union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, for publishing distorted facts in history, political science and civics textbooks, the Mahila Kisan Union president Biba Rajwinder Kaur Raju in a strong communique pointed out that the Anandpur Sahib Resolution 1973 was never ever a plea for a separate nation as written in the class XII NCERT textbook which has hurt the sentiments of the Sikh qaum.
In a vehement appeal to the union government the farmer leader demanded that changed textbooks of history, political science and civics should be withdrawn immediately and rewritten keeping in view the right prospective of Sikhs and Punjab so that schoolchildren read about authentic Indian history and polity particularly the annals of Sikhs history as it receives a fair deal both as a religion and as a movement.
Justifying the nationwide demands for establishing healthy centre-state relations in federal India, Biba Raju said the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was accepted as legitimate in the Rajiv-Longowal Accord endorsed by the Parliament and it was referred to then Sarkaria Commission as well who in fact go along with it in its recommendations to the Parliament and accepted by the government of India. “It’s a sheer mischief by the saffron party to portray the Sikhs as separatists which would not be tolerated”, she hinted at.
The Mahila Kisan Union blasted at the incompetent, handpicked and ill-informed writers deputed by the government to twist the chronicles and petitioned that grave injustice was done to the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh. She rebuked the ever conspicuous taciturnity of a puppet national minority commission, and lamented that particularly the “ill-treatment” has been done to the Sikh period, revered Gurus, the Sikh kingdom with Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Baba Banda Singh Bahadur and the illustrious role of Sikhs in the freedom movement in the curricula.
Terming it the another utmost blunder committed by the Modi dispensation to weaken the national unity, the farmer leader asked all the academics and historians to unite against the dictates of autocratic and authoritarian regimes thereby forcing the right wingers to withdraw the textbooks and amend these changes.
The farmer leader has urged the Punjab government as well as SGPC and Chief Khalsa Diwan not to bank upon the NCERT led ‘saffronised books’ but prescribe Punjab School Education Board textbooks and syllabi in all types of schools in the state.
