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Five bizarre 'lessons' in Indian Textbooks

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34336826
India, which has a literacy level well below the global average, has intensified its efforts in the field of education.

In 2012 the country passed the Right to Education act which guarantees free and compulsory education for all children until the age of 14.

However, some of the "facts" that have been found in textbooks around the country have given rise to speculation over what exactly passes for "education" in India.

Glaring mistakes, downright lies and embellishments in textbooks are often featured in local media. A trend that is all the more worrying, given that India's education system promotes rote learning at the cost of analytical thinking.

The BBC's Ayeshea Perera looks at five of the most outrageous excerpts from Indian textbooks that have made headlines in recent times:

Women steal jobs

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A teacher in the central Indian state of Chhatisgarh recently complained about a textbook for 15-year-olds in the state, which said that unemployment levels had risen post independence because women have begun working in various sectors.

When contacted by the Times of India newspaper, the director of the state council for educational research and training told the newspaper: "It's a matter of debate. It was a writer's view out of his experience. Now, it is the teacher's job how they explain things to the students and ask the students for their view whether they agreed to it or not."

Never trust a meat eater

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A national textbook for 11-year-old students created uproar in 2012 when it was discovered that it said that people who eat meat "easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes".

Later, the director of the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) told the NDTV news channel that school books used across the country are not monitored for content.

'Donkey' wives

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In 2006, it was discovered that a textbook for 14-year-olds in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan compared housewives to donkeys.

"A donkey is like a housewife. It has to toil all day and, like her, may even have to give up food and water. In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master," the Times of India quoted the Hindi language textbook as saying.

An official told the newspaper that the comparison had been made in "good humour".

Japan did what in World War Two?

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In what can only be described as a complete distortion of history, a social science textbook believed to have been taught to 50,000 students in the western Indian state of Gujarat declared that Japan had launched a nuclear attack on the US during World War Two.

Officials said the textbooks, which also got the date of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination wrong, would be corrected. However, officials had also said that the textbooks currently in circulation would not be recalled.

'Sewage' Canal

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Don't be too shocked if you find students from the west Indian state of Maharashtra telling you that the "Sewage Canal" is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. That is how the Suez Canal has been spelled in an English language textbook in the state.

The book, meant for 15-year-olds also spelled "Gandhi" as "Gandi", and got a number of important Indian historical dates completely wrong. The NDTV website which reported the errors said that it had not been able to contact the officials responsible for the textbooks.

Cartoons by BBC Hindi's Kirtish Bhatt
 
Propaganda against India, Indian are some of the best educator and students in the world. not only they are very patriotic but very logical when it comes to patriotism and education.
 
Who cares for BBC. SOME WESTERN MEDIA SHOWS THAT THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND HAD A PRACTICE OF EATING OF HUMAN FLESH. I'D IT TRUE BBC.

An Indian and a SACHINIST
 
[MENTION=137870]www787[/MENTION] and@Navitrk : CAnt you handle simply criticism in a flawed system? I assumed education teaches tolerance and ability to listen and correct one's mistake. Dont go into bitchy fits!!

The biggest flaw in indian education system is the modification of history so that religious sensibilities are not hurt. That, and lionization of useless monarchs and feudal lords. And vilification of Jinnah and glorification of Nehru. And overrating gandhi.
 
The biggest flaw in indian education system is the modification of history so that religious sensibilities are not hurt. That, and lionization of useless monarchs and feudal lords. And vilification of Jinnah and glorification of Nehru. And overrating gandhi.

Most Indian text books are silent in case of Jinnah. They don't portray him as hero or villain. Just neutral.
 
And vilification of Jinnah .


I did my entire schooling in India and nowhere in any Indian textbook was Jinnah ever vilified. The only thing that used to be mentioned about him was that he was the founder of Pakistan, and that is the truth. The entire issue of partition used to be dealt with in a very neutral tone.

I don't remember Aurangazeb and Tipu Sultan being villified either. But of course, this was in the 1980s.
 
Compilation of old news, are they still teaching these kind of stupidities in schools ?
 
I did my entire schooling in India and nowhere in any Indian textbook was Jinnah ever vilified. The only thing that used to be mentioned about him was that he was the founder of Pakistan, and that is the truth. The entire issue of partition used to be dealt with in a very neutral tone.

I don't remember Aurangazeb and Tipu Sultan being villified either. But of course, this was in the 1980s.

He is vilified in pretty much every Indian partition related book or movie for sure ateast
 
He is vilified in pretty much every Indian partition related book or movie for sure ateast

Maybe in movies and books but not in our textbooks. I studied in both state board and central and jinnah is just mentioned as the founder of pakistan that's all.
 
Maybe in movies and books but not in our textbooks. I studied in both state board and central and jinnah is just mentioned as the founder of pakistan that's all.

Same here not sure what are they on about.Even Ali brothers are mentioned in a good way in Tamil Nadu Matriculation books.
 
He is vilified in pretty much every Indian partition related book or movie for sure ateast

One of the best and most popular books that had the partition as backdrop was Khushwant Singh's 'Train to Pakistan'. Khushwant himself had suffered during partition, but you won't find one word against Pakistan or Jinnah in this book or in any other of his writings.

In fact, most Indian writers treat Jinnah with respect. The only exceptions may be the hard core right wing hindu types, but even these don't vilify Jinnah
as much as they do Pakistan and the way Hindus and Sikhs were treated during partition.
 
One of the best and most popular books that had the partition as backdrop was Khushwant Singh's 'Train to Pakistan'. Khushwant himself had suffered during partition, but you won't find one word against Pakistan or Jinnah in this book or in any other of his writings.

In fact, most Indian writers treat Jinnah with respect. The only exceptions may be the hard core right wing hindu types, but even these don't vilify Jinnah
as much as they do Pakistan and the way Hindus and Sikhs were treated during partition.

Lol. Khushwant Singh was friends with Jinnah (Jinnah offered him some post in Pakistan).

Only exceptions are right wing hindu types? That is why when BJP leader Advani called Jinnah secular, all the "seculars" in India were baying for his blood.
 
Only exceptions are right wing hindu types? That is why when BJP leader Advani called Jinnah secular, all the "seculars" in India were baying for his blood.

When were the "seculars" in India not baying for Advani's blood?

Can you point out to us some work of literature by a recognized Indian author in which Jinnah has been vilified?
 
When were the "seculars" in India not baying for Advani's blood?

Can you point out to us some work of literature by a recognized Indian author in which Jinnah has been vilified?

LOL. They were offended at Advani labelling Jinnah as secular.

Bipan Chandra in india's struggle for independence, says that after muslim league didnt do well in 1937 he gave up his nationalist and liberal politics and went towards extreme communalism, with cries of islam in danger and danger of the hindu raj. This is a leftist secular historian.
 
India’s Higher Education Troubles

(...)
While none of these decades-old structural problems have been addressed, Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has exacerbated the crises of higher education. The few central universities that had a culture of independent research and critical thinking have come under consistent assault since Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party took charge.

Education has been a prime target of the B.J.P.’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, known as the R.S.S., whose self-professed aim is to establish a Hindu nation. For this to happen, the R.S.S. argues that Indians must be made to understand their glorious, ancient Vedic Hindu heritage.

School textbooks in Indian states ruled by the B.J.P. governments are being rewritten to erase India’s “Muslim past” or reduce the centuries of rule by Mughal emperors and other Muslim rulers to one of darkness and enslavement. Historical convention has always held that Mughal ruler Akbar defeated Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap in 1576. Textbooks in the northern state of Rajasthan now tell students that it was Maharana Pratap who won because he managed to run away from the battlefield. Even the Taj Mahal, India’s most famous monument, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, has not been spared, with one B.J.P. member of Parliament claiming it was originally a Hindu temple.

While the government is obsessed with making it into world rankings in science and technology, the B.J.P.’s leaders display a shockingly poor understanding of science. Satyapal Singh, the junior federal minister for education, recently claimed that Charles Darwin was wrong because no one had actually seen an ape turn into a man. He drew on creationist literature for scientific support. A few years back, Mr. Modi described the mythical elephant head of Ganesha, a much-loved Hindu God, as an example of the ancient Indian skill of plastic surgery.

Many of the academics the Modi government has appointed to lead national research institutes or universities have no peer-reviewed publications. However, they are longstanding members of the R.S.S., as is Mr. Modi. And they have publicly expressed their admiration for the prime minister. In turn, these university chiefs have brought in their own people, overriding longstanding academic conventions around recruitment.
(...)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opinion/india-higher-education-modi-ambani-rss-trouble.html
[MENTION=48620]Cpt. Rishwat[/MENTION]
 
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