Targeting the saffronisation of education through administrative measures, Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked all the 14 Chief Ministers of the states ruled by the party to ‘‘scrutinise’’ and ‘‘examine’’ the school textbooks in their respective states.Sonia has sent the directives, which she had specified in the Shimla brain-storming session, to the state governments to report back to her on the progress made.It is also learnt that the states have been asked to reprint school textbooks by the state boards in case serious misinterpretation of facts was found.This is the second time that Sonia has asked state governments to counter communalisation of education at the state level. Earlier, at the party Chief Ministers’s conference in Srinagar in May, Sonia had asked the states to ‘‘ideologically counter’’ the RSS-run Saraswati Shishu Mandirs saying they were places ‘‘where seeds of bigotry are first planted in young and impressionable minds.’’While the matter is to be taken up by all state governments, it is being followed up with special urgency in the four states going to Assembly elections this year-end.In Delhi and Rajasthan, efforts are already on by the state Education Departments to closely scrutinise the textbooks, especially those of social sciences, and review them wherever necessary.Ambika Soni, party general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two states going to polls, said: ‘‘The party president has communicated to the state governments about her concern over the saffronisation of education.’’‘‘State governments have been asked to carefully check if anything has been passed cursorily by the Education Departments,’’ she said.Soni also said that the state governments are expected to report back to the Congress president on the status of the exercise periodically.Sonia has set up the Bapu Sadhbhavna and Shiksha Trust to counter the ‘‘saffronisation of education’’. This would be a group of ‘‘secular and progressive’’ people to counter the ‘‘religious experts’’ that the NCERT has said it would consult before including references to religion in the textbooks.The saffronisation of education was cited as one of the ‘‘political challenges’’ facing the party and the nation at the Shimla session.
