Parents refuse to hail Hitler

Tina Parekh & Prashant Rupera / TNN / Jul 30, 2005, 21:10 IST

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AHMEDABAD: Why are parents in Gujarat fuming?

AHMEDABAD/VADODARA: Why are parents in Gujarat fuming? The answer lies in textbooks that - despite being full of distortions and language errors - are being taught across the state��s classrooms. They say, these books are clearly not teaching students history.
So, Bhaven Patel is not amused. As the state education department refuses to withdraw the class IX social sciences textbook with full of errors and misrepresentations, he feels it will leave a wrong impact on impressionable minds.
If the book is in circulation this year without any corrections being incorporated, similar mistakes found in class X social studies book last year had evoked the same response from the government - just a corrigendum circulated among schools while the book continued to be taught.
"These young minds are imbibing a distorted and wrong version of history and it will forever remain embedded in their memory. They need to be taught the right things at the right time. At this stage, when schools have begun teaching from such books, the damage has already been done," says Patel, parent of a class IX student in Ahmedabad.

Like Patel, many parents say there is no reason why the textbook board cannot withdraw such errorridden books. "Students have to be told what is correct and what is not.
Unless mistakes in the textbooks are pointed out to them, they will never know history the way it is. If such books continue to be taught in classrooms, we will be cheating our children," says mother of a class X student, Heena Chaudhary.
Hinting at the glorification of Hitler in the textbook, Patel adds that such misrepresentation is an insult to history. "It is a great injustice to those who have fought against such evil. The textbook board must make amendments soon," he says.
Vadodara-based businessmen Pankaj Parikh, too, is agitated. Parikh, whose son Niral is a class IX student, wants the state government to have the chapters glorifying Hitler replaced and a new textbook circulated. "No parent would like his child to learn history in a distorted form. If the government tampers with historical facts, no parent or student would consider textbooks to be sacrosanct and authentic," says Parikh.

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