A Rajasthan textbook for Class 12 on “socially relevant schemes” says that the desirable physical attributes of an entrepreneur include “good height” and “beautiful complexion”.
According to a report by the Indian Express, the chapter on Skill Development in a Class 12 textbook lists the “physical attributes” desirable in an entrepreneur, including “Uttam swasthya, prabhavshali vyaktitva, acchi unchai, sundar rang, shaleenta, gambhirta (perfect health, impressive personality, good height, beautiful complexion, sobriety, seriousness).”
The book is recent example on racist thoughts prevalent in society.
Recently, former BJP parliamentarian Tarun Vijay was panned after he made racist remarks about “south Indians”.
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Seeking to defend India against the charge of racism following attacks on African students, he said during a panel discussion on an international news channel, "If we (Indians) were racist, why would we have the entire south? Which is you know... Completely Tamil, you know Kerala, you know Karnataka and Andhra. Why do we live with them? We have blacks, black people all around us"
The textbook, dedicated to key central and state government schemes, focuses mainly on announcements made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and instructs students to “internalise each word” of his Swacch Bharat pledge, says the report.
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The report quotes a chapter on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in a Class 12 textbook which reads, “Repeat the pledge delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to all citizens of the country on 2nd October 2014 and internalise its every word,”
Rajasthan's curriculum was revamped to propogate the initiatives of the BJP government. The State Institute of Educational Research and Training in Udaipur took up what education minister Vasudev Devnani called “curriculum restructuring” in 2015.
The new books saw significant changes in historical facts. Mohanlal Gupta, a BJP MLA proposed to 'amend' history in textbooks to correct what he termed was 'distorted' history and to acquaint the students with the'right history'.
The new books now sang praises of Maharana Pratap and is suspiciously silent on Congress leaders. Jawaharlal Nehru was erased and a chapter on Emergency, a dark period in Indian democracy in 1975, added.
The battle of Haldighati was also rewritten and contrary to what historians have till now believed, the book said that Maharana Pratap defeated Akbar and won the battle in 1576.
There was silence on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by Nathuram Godse, and works of John Keats, William Blake and TS Eliot were out of English textbooks. Sanskrit textbooks glorified cows and new heroes, such as Veer Savarkar, Deendayal Upadhyay and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, found place in the revised textbooks.
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Devnani, an electrical engineer associated with the RSS since college, called the process a cultural reform. “We rewrote history because it was distorted,” he said. “We want our students to be proud of Indian culture and become an ideal citizen.” says a report by the Hindustan Times.
The HT report also says that students are now made to perform ‘surya namaskar’ (sun salutation) during morning prayers at government schools and from July, the colour of their uniforms will be same as that of RSS trousers, hinting at the saffronisation of education in the state.
“This is unbelievable. In the recent past, the BJP government has altered and removed important historical facts from textbooks. Now they have stooped to the level of using school education as a platform for BJP propaganda,” Indian Express quoted Congress state president Sachin Pilot as saying.
