NCERT likely to review cartoon on Ambedkar

The HRD ministry is set to ask the NCERT to review a cartoon in a class XI textbook on political science which appears to show Baba Sahib Bhimrao Ambedkar in a bad light and is a reason for anger among dalits. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 7, 2012, 02:00:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The HRD ministry is set to ask the NCERT to review a cartoon in a class XI textbook on political science which appears to show Baba Sahib Bhimrao Ambedkar in a bad light and is a reason for anger among dalits.

The NCERT had used Shankar's cartoon of Children's Book Trust to indicate that framing of the constitution was a slow process. The cartoon showed Ambedkar sitting on a snail called the Constitution and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru whipping the snail to make it move faster.

From the cartoon, it appeared that NCERT was blaming Ambedkar for three years the constituent assembly took to prepare the draft of the Constitution.

"It is very academic type of question I can't answer at this moment," said Professor B K Tripathi, joint director in NCERT.

Other officials, however, said the NCERT had used the cartoon to ask the students what the cartoonist Shankar was trying to say. For this, two questions were asked in the text with the cartoon --- Is the cartoonist commenting on this fact and why do you think, did the Constituent Assembly take so long to make the Constitution?

This has irked dalits scholars and activists leading to protest in several places in Maharastra including Nagpur and Mumbai.

"Reproducing the cartoon is no less insult that demeaning a statue of Dr Ambedkar. It is unfortunate that sensitivity of 17 % of the population have not been kept in mind by the NCERT," said Dr Yagati Chinna Rao, associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru's School for Social Sciences.

Dalits have also felt hurt at the chapter one of the book - Indian Constitution at Work --- depicting Ambedkar as critic of Congress and Mahatma Gandhi for not doing enough for upliftment of scheduled castes. The chapter also says there was "dispute between Nehru and Sardar Patel over many issues".

The NCERT officials wondered why the controversy has suddenly erupted as the textbook on Indian Constitution was introduced in 2006. Officials, however, admit that there was some recent revision in the books.

The controversy, which erupted after Republican Party of India leader Ramdas Athwale burnt the book in Mumbai this week, had forced HRD ministry to review.

"If there is something objectionable NCERT will definitely look into it," a senior HRD ministry official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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