In Gujarat, martyrs ‘got hanged with smiling face’

The textbook contains more gems, quoted verbatim: ‘‘Against the oppression of movements started opposing rowlatt act and apprehension of popular leaders, a meeting was arranged on April 13, 1919 in Jallianwala bagh of Amritsar.’’

The textbook also describes freedom fighters as having ‘‘shed their warm blood’’ and calls child marriage a ‘‘silly practice’’.

‘‘This is not just sub-standard, it will confuse students and put their careers in jeopardy,’’ says Fr Cedric Prakash of Prashant, an NGO that has started a campaign for withdrawal of the textbook. Prashant is also sending a memorandum to the education minister, with copies to the textbook board and NCERT.

Says Satinder Santani, a teacher at St Xavier’s High School, Loyola Hall: ‘‘I wonder what students will understand from these paragraphs. The first two chapters have lots of errors.’’

While Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been stressing on the need for Gujaratis to learn English, his textbook board is in no mood to withdraw the textbook — for errors of language at least, if not for the distortions that Prashant alleges.

‘‘There’s no question of withdrawing the textbook. Corrections, if any, will be made during the reprint,’’ said GSSTB’s Patel. But then, his defence is not surprising. In a joint preface to the textbook with the board’s executive director P. Paneervel, Patel wrote: ‘‘We have taken the sufficient care to prepare fault free textbook…”