‘Deviations’ in textbooks will go if Cong wins: Arjun

Trying to prove his point, the Union minister said “Hitler, a mass murderer involved in the killing of millions of people in gas chambers, is being presented as an icon in school textbooks of Gujarat”.

“The state Government cannot extol the virtues of Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi in the same breath. It must be careful and such aberrations need to be avoided,” he said.

Asked what steps did he take to rectify the aberrations as the Union HRD Minister, Singh said: “I tried to intervene but I could not do anything because of education being in the concurrent list. I can just advise.”

In reply to another question, he said as far as ideological bias was concerned, every political party had freedom to give its own interpretation in public affairs. “But deviations in textbooks have to be removed. If the Congress comes to power, it will remove these deviations from textbooks,” he reiterated.

He justified reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in educational institutions saying that it was necessary to remove the inequities they had suffered for ages.

On privatisation of education, he said total privatisation of education on commercial basis was not in the interest of the country. “This cannot be allowed,” he said.