Telangana officials told to have image of amended Preamble pasted on textbook cover

The new textbook for Class 10, both in the Telugu and English media, now carry an image of the Preamble from the 1950s, as it was drafted and introduced in the Constitution then. While the original Preamble described India as a “sovereign democratic republic”, the words “socialist” and “secular” were added in 1976 through the 42nd amendment. The error, however, is only on the cover of the text book and the inside pages carry the current Preamble.

On Thursday evening, the SCERT blamed the error on an oversight that happened while downloading the image of the Preamble during the redesigning of the textbook.

The DEOs have been asked to instruct all headmasters and principals to have the newly shared image pasted on the textbooks, M Radha Reddy, director of the SCERT, said. Reddy, however, did not clarify if an inquiry was initiated. She did not respond to calls for comment.

In the official communication to officials, the SCERT director said Friday, “Due to oversight, the image of the original Preamble was downloaded at the time of redesigning instead of the amended one on the cover page of the class X Social Studies textbook. Hence, it is informed to download the image of the Preamble (amended) furnished by the State Council of Educational Research & Training (SCERT) and have it pasted on the cover page of the class X Social Studies textbook.”

The SCERT has also sought a compliance report from the DEOs and asked for the matter to be treated as “the most urgent and top priority”.

While the SCERT termed the error as inadvertent, Chava Ravi, secretary of the TSUTF, asked how the publisher could erroneously download an old image of the Preamble and put it on the cover page of the Class 10 book.

“I feel some persons, advisors and authors of the textbook did it intentionally. The SCERT director has told us that it was not intentional and the image was downloaded from Google. We need an investigation,” he said, citing the discussions on threats to secularism in the country.