May 12, 2012
NEW DELHI: A cartoon on Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar, first published in 1949 and reproduced in a school text book, set off a storm in Parliament on Friday forcing HRD minister Kapil Sibal to apologize after parties alleged the depiction insulted Ambedkar.
May 12, 2012
NEW DELHI: A cartoon on Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar, first published in 1949 and reproduced in a school text book, set off a storm in Parliament on Friday forcing HRD minister Kapil Sibal to apologize after parties alleged the depiction insulted Ambedkar.
The cartoon caused disruptions in Lok Sabha soon after it met with MPs demanding that it be withdrawn. Some called for Sibal's resignation, others wanted an apology.
Following the uproar, Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, advisors at National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), resigned.
Sensing the political combustibility of the issue, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee sought to cool tempers by immediately decrying the reproduction as inappropriate and launching into a detailed account of how Ambedkar oversaw the writing of one of the world's lengthiest constitutions.
Mukherjee's erudition stopped the protests briefly but the House had to be adjourned. It was disrupted twice more before the chair decided to put an end to the day's proceedings.
While Sibal scrambled to explain that a review of NCERT books had been ordered and distribution of texts stopped, academics and artists felt the protests were overblown. They said that neither Nehru nor Ambedkar found the depiction objectionable and felt the book explained the context adequately.
Other sections of opinion, however, felt sensitivities of the socially disadvantaged ought to have been kept in mind by NCERT in an age of political and social assertion.
Courtesy: TOI
