Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 29, 2004
Swarup Kumari Bakshi, a reputed
educationist who served in successive Congress regimes in Uttar Pradesh,
and, above all, a relative of the Nehru- Gandhis', is today a victim of
HRD Minister Arjun Singh's spurious campaign against "communal" publications.
Along with 20 other teachers who
participated in the freedom movement, former NCERT director JS Rajput sought
to immortalise her in a volume titled Aaj ke Sikshak. But Singh's Communist
advisors decided that like all other projects initiated by Rajput, this
too must go.
The story of these humble teachers'
contribution could have been widely known had Singh not placed such blind
faith in his Communist advisers. For three years, several members of the
NCERT's academic staff worked hard to trace out these living legends, then
in the evening of their lives, and conducted exhaustive interviews so that
future generations could be inspired. But just as the book project neared
completion, Communists intervened and the ministry ordered "stop press".
Earlier this month, Singh had ended
up with egg on his face over his decision on two of the books he banned:
the Tirukkal of Thiruvalluvar and a work on the Vedanta by Karan Singh.
In the case of the first, the DMK raised a stink and Singh buckled. As
for the latter, several Congress leaders, fast tiring of Singh's attitude,
rushed to party president Sonia Gandhi to ensure the minister withdrew
his order. But Aaj ke Sikshak, for want of powerful backers, remained in
the doghouse. A fourth book, Global Education Change, has also been a victim
of "secular" overkill.
Now, The Pioneer has managed to
get a copy of the manuscript. After extensive perusal, it becomes abundantly
clear that Singh has goofed again. The book oozes patriotism, stories of
courage and sacrifice. There is no politics. Moreover, not even one of
the 21 teachers who feature in the collection has the remotest links with
the Communists' bete noir, the RSS.
So, why was it banned. Comments
Rajput: "The Communists are apprehensive about any book on the freedom
movement because they fear their treacherous role during the Quit India
movement would be further exposed. It is this 1942 mindset which has motivated
their purge of all NCERT publications - textbooks as well as general titles.
Immortalising these teachers as role models before future generations was
my fond hope."
Earlier this month, Leftist intellectuals
launched a whisper campaign through the media justifying the ban on the
book on the premise that the "mode of selection" of the freedom fighter-teachers
was "dubious". But that would surprise Bakshi, who tells her interviewer
proudly how, as a ten-year-old, she traveled to Lahore to attend the AICC
meet. In 1942, she had been jailed during the Quit India Movement. Throughout
her life, she never wore anything but khadi. She started a school for the
children of backward communities, and Jawaharlal Nehru, who was related
to her through Kamala Nehru, always made it a point to stay in her house
whenever he visited Lucknow.
"I am shocked that the minister
and the Marxists have banned this book. What is so communal about it? They
had also banned Vedanta. Will they also find the Ramayana and Mahabharata
communal next ?" the octogenarian said.