Arjun shoots, friendly fire

The detoxifiers in the HRD Ministry have started fumigating not just the saffron brigade but even some from the Congress. A curt verbal mess...

The detoxifiers in the HRD Ministry have started fumigating not just the saffron brigade but even some from the Congress. A curt verbal message from a deputy secretary of the ministry to the NCERT last evening carried the instruction that the printing of Vedanta, a book by Congress leader Karan Singh, be withheld.

The deputy secretary also said the printing of an English translation of Thirukural, the two-millennia-old Tamil classic that is treated more like a code of ethics than a religious text, be stopped. The axe also fell on a pet book project of outgoing NCERT director J.S. Rajput entitled 8216;8216;Aaj Ki Shikshak8217;8217;.

When told there has been a printing ban on his book, an amused Karan Singh said: 8216;8216;My book is at the completely opposite pole of Hindutva.8217;8217; He added, 8216;8216;This book comprises passages selected from the Gita and the Upanishads.8217;8217; He explained that the NCERT book was quite different from another by the same name authored by him and brought out by a publishing company called Kalpa Tree.

NCERT sources said value education books have been published by previous governments, and the three books were meant to be for supplementary reading and included among books recommended for teachers in training programmes.

In fact, the check-list of NCERT publications showed it has brought out supplementary books during Congress regimes in the past like Living Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and Life of Guru Nanak.

The inclusion of Thirukural in the list of 8216;8216;suspect8217;8217; books has raised many eyebrows. This classic has sold more copies worldwide than any other Tamil book, and it is regarded more as a spiritual guide than a religious book.

Higher Education Secretary B.S. Baswan said, 8216;8216;I am aware the message has been communicated that the printing of these books should be withheld. We want to look at these manuscripts before they are printed.8217;8217;

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While Baswan said the ministry was doing a rethink on whether the NCERT should at all print books like Vedanta or Thirukural, NCERT officials asked if any book on religion would now be interpreted as yielding ground to religiosity. Even Aaj Ki Shikshak, some of them said, was the least controversial of Rajput8217;s projects and it was about teachers who had participated in the freedom struggle. What could definitely be questioned was the criteria adopted for choosing the teachers.