Karnataka education department denies dropping Bhagat Singh's lesson from textbooks

Clarifying that the lesson on Bhagat Singh has not been dropped as against the made allegations, Department of Education further informed that the 10th class First Language Kannada text books are currently under print.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education department on Tuesday denied it had removed a chapter on Bhagat Singh from the 10th class Kannada textbook. Some organisations, including the Student Federation of India(SFI), All-India Democratic Students Organization (AIDSO), and All-India Save Education Committee (AISEC) had earlier alleged that Minister BC Nagesh had replaced the Bhagat Singh chapter with a speech by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.

After the allegations surfaced, a committee was formed and chaired by Rohit Chakratirtha -- the Chairperson of Textbook Review Committee -- to review and revise the insights in the social sciences and language textbooks. The committee reportedly revised the 6th-10th class social science textbook and 1st to 10th class Kannada language textbooks. Clarifying that the lesson on Bhagat Singh has not been dropped as against the made allegations, Department of Education further informed that the 10th class First Language Kannada text books are currently under print.

Reacting to the allegations, Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education Minister BC Nagesh said that though the textbooks contain speeches by Hedgewar, the allegations of removal of Bhagat Singh's chapter are false. "Our education department considers what experts have done. We will look into what should be and what is not. I will not try to answer all the speculations. We have seen similar speculations in the past. There was some talk that lessons on Tipu Sultan had been removed from the textbook. The same people today are talking about Hedgewar."

The organizations who made the allegations had also claimed the omission of works by renaissance literary figures like A N Murthi Rao's ‘Vyaghrageethe', P Lankesh's ‘Mruga Mattu Sundari,' and Sara Aboobacker's ‘Yuddha,' other than Bhagat Singh. They further alleged that the BJP government in the State is trying to force the ideology of RSS and the party into the textbooks.