Joshi misled Parliament, says Sahmat

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 24. Accusing the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, of misleading Parliament by giving false information during the debate on ``saffronisation of education'' last Thursday, academicians today alleged that the NDA Government was just furthering its ``hidden agenda'' in the garb of providing ``value-based'' education.

Condemning the Union Minister for giving false information on the floor of the House, members of Sahmat(Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust) today criticised the Government for communalising education and trying to rewrite history in school books.

Reacting to the Minister's claim in Parliament that the preparatory material for national curriculum framework for school education was discussed with experts like Prof. Yashpal, Dr. Arvind Kumar and Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, the noted historian, Ms. Romila Thapar, today said, ``From what most of these experts have told us, they were invited to give lectures to the curriculum group and not to take part in any discussion.

The Government seems not to be showing too much concern for consultation.''

Addressing a press conference organised by Sahmat here, she further questioned if ``one stops merely at consulting political parties.

All we want to know is who are these so called historians and academicians who are deciding what the students of this country should or should not read and who seem to be literally rewriting history.''

The Government's stress on providing value-based education also came in for sharp criticism. Dr. Joshi had stated in Parliament that ``what is required today is not religious education but education about religions, their basics, the values inherent therein and also a comparative study of the philosophy of all religions''

Questioning this point of the Minister, Prof. Anil Sadagopal of the Delhi University's Department of Education said, ``When did we teach religion to our students over the last five decades. In a multi-religious society like ours, where is the need.

Since when has religion become an important part of social values. It is simply the notions of education that the Sangh Parivar is trying to promote,'' he said.

Reacting to the Government's proposal to make Sanskrit mandatory in all schools across the country, Prof. Sadagopal said ``The Government may believe that Sanskrit has a universal appeal, but it seems to me that Dr.Joshi's India is much smaller than my India, which also includes the North-East, the Central India and places like Tamil Nadu which has people speaking a language perhaps as old as Sanskrit.''

Describing the recent advertisement that the University Grants Commission had given in the Employment News for the post of lecturer for Spoken Sanskrit, the academics alleged that while the UGC had complained about not having enough resources for supporting the Elementary Education course of Delhi University, it had enough money to support subjects like Astrology and Vedic Studies that were not based on scientific reasoning but were just cults.

``By keeping the eligibility criteria for the lecturers as low as a simple graduation, the UGC itself flouted basic guidelines. And in any case, all colleges have their own selection committees, so how can the UGC make the selections for them,'' another academician asked.

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