The Lotus Stickers

Schoolteachers in MP now have the unenviable task of ensuring that the picture of the lotus in a textbook is replaced by another lotus! Mandarins at the state education department are busy despatching 10 lakh stickers of the new lotus to all districts, to be affixed on the picture of an existing lotus in all 9.64 lakh copies of the VI standard social science textbook. The exercise has been taken up on the orders of the EC and must be completed within two weeks. The textbook, in a chapter on India’s national symbols, carries the picture of a lotus, the country’s national flower. The problem: the picture’s uncanny resemblance to the BJP poll symbol. With the Opposition complaining, it was decided that a different lotus was needed.