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Congress gives in to SAD’s panthic cry on Class-12 history textbook
With the Shahkot bypoll scheduled on May 28, the issue has given a shot in the arm to SAD. Whatever the polls results, the Akalis now have at least a point to raise during the campaign.
Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government seems to have succumbed after the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) raised panthic bogey on the issue of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB)’s new Class 12 history textbook, alleging discrepancies in its content.
With the Shahkot bypoll scheduled on May 28, the issue has given a shot in the arm to SAD. Whatever the polls results, the Akalis now have at least a point to raise during the campaign.
For at least for 10 days since the issue surfaced, the state government refused to acknowledge there was any discrepancy in the book, it gave up on Tuesday and announced to put the new book on hold.
On Monday, the government had nominated a group of Punjab history experts to study the shortcomings, gave it a status of a permanent committee that will oversee the entire history curriculum in the state-run schools.
The issue led to a war of words between the two leaders — chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal. Last week, Sukhbir and other senior Akali leaders pointed out shortcomings in the book already being taught to the students, saying such a thing could never be tolerated by the Akalis and on the other hand, the CM cautioned the SAD chief not to politicise the issue.
“Had the government set up a committee to review the book immediately when the issue came to light, it would not have given so much leverage to the opposition parties, particularly SAD,” said a Congress leader seeking anonymity.
When out of power, the Akalis prefer to raise the panthic issues. But when in power for two consecutive terms from 2007 to 2017, they preferred to be seen as a Punjabi party, pushing panthic issues on the backburner.
In the battle of political one-upmanship, the Akalis outsmarted the main opposition party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which too was raising some noise, but the impact came when SAD and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) opened battlefront on the issue. SGPC termed deletion of Guru’s mention from the book as next big attack on Sikhs after the operation blue star of 1984 on the Golden Temple.
Things started rolling in favour of the Akalis when SGPC became aggressive, and its ‘dharma parchar committee’ (religious propagation committee) held a meeting on May 7, giving 10-day ultimatum to the government to settle the issue by recalling the book and set up a committee to write the history textbook afresh. The SGPC general house has majority of members from the SAD.
“The entire episode could have been avoided. The government was misled on the issue and it couldn’t get timely feedback. It’s not only about the panth, but concerns every Punjabi. Can we negate the history of a place? I do not think so,” said SAD spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema.
“Actually, it was a non issue. The Akalis dig out such issues when the elections are around,” said Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar.
