The state BJP has demanded the withdrawal of history and social science textbooks prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) following negligence towards the history of Maharashtra and its prominent personalities.
Party state unit chief Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday announced statewide protest against omitting
significant portions of
history pertaining to Maharashtra state from these textbooks.
The Opposition leaders would soon meet chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to convey their displeasure and request him to pursue the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the ministry of human resource development (HRD).
“It is very unfortunate that the history of Maharashtra was covered very briefly in the history textbooks of CBSE, which is a clear injustice to the state.”
“The review of the curriculum that was prepared by the NCERT for Classes 6 to 12 for History and Social Science reveals that out of the 2,100 pages, the history of Marathas was covered in barely two pages,” Besides, only one small paragraph was
devoted for the great Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,” Mr Fadnavis said.
The BJP leader informed that all the great social reformers of Maharashtra, freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives and political reformists were completely ignored.
Interestingly, the entire syllabus was prepared in 2007 and incorporated in the curriculum since then.
Condemning the NCERT, Mr Fadnavis said that they would not allow such textbooks in Maharashtra.
“On September 29, party workers from every tehsil will burn effigies of the NCERT in front of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue,” he said.