People's Democracy

ERRORS, BIASES FOUND IN CLASS IX TEXT BOOK :

§         A major geographical discovery disclosed in the book is about Madagascar which is stated to be ' an island in the Arabian Sea'. The fact is that this island is in the Indian Ocean.

 §         The English East India Company is supposed to have been 'established in India' in 1600.  It was established in England.

 §         The Russian Revolution is simply termed as a 'coup' led by Lenin.

 §         The 'Czars', it would appear, is the name of a dynasty because "Many generation-old rule of the family of Czars was swept away by a coup led by Lenin".

 §         The authors of the book find it 'interesting to note that Stalin was the first European leader to enter into a peace-agreement with Hitler' [1939]. The Munich Pact was signed in 1938, much before the Stalin-Hitler pact.

 §         The book says that with Japan's 'moral and material support', Subhas Bose and INA 'was able to liberate the islands of Andaman' etc. The fact is that the Andamans had been occupied by the Japanese by early 1942 and Subhas Bose came from Germany to Japan and then to Singapore in mid-1943 and to the Andamans in December 1943. 

 §         A picture of Barin Ghose, Aurobindo Ghose's brother and an accused in the Alipore Conspiracy Case, has been wrongly identified as that of Vasudev Phadke

 §         Subramania Bharati, the Class IX students would now learn, was among the revolutionaries who 'spread their activities in England and other European countries'. As everyone knows, Bharati had escaped to Pondicherry and not to any European country.

 §         For those who do not know already, it is stated that 'backed by the Jana Sangh', the volunteers of "Free Goa" captured Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

 §         While the Russian Revolution has been described as a coup, Fascism and Nazism were nothing more than ' a sort of a counterpart of the dictatorship of the proletariat…imposed…by Stalin'. There is nothing else that we need to tell our school children about fascism and nazism, the atrocities, the holocaust, responsibility for the War or any other matter.

 §         The Cold War was not such a bad thing after all because it meant 'intense rivalries' which were 'coupled with a sort of determination to avoid a full-scale open war'.

 §         The terms 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' are frequently used irrespective of their relevance to the developments being referred to. There is much on Muslim communalism and Muslim League but not even an indirect reference to Hindu communalism. The Hindu Mahasabha is mentioned a number of times but nowhere with reference to Hindu communalism. There is, sadly, no reference to RSS, not even in the context of cultural nationalism. The 'only political elements who did not support' the Quit India were the 'Indian Communists and followers of Jinnah'. As RSS was not among 'political elements', obviously it could not be mentioned. But why leave out the Hindu Mahasabha?

 §         Jawaharlal Nehru has been put in his place and the only references made to him occur only when it is impossible to avoid them, for example, when he became President of the Lahore session and when he became Prime Minister.

 §         It has been mentioned earlier that there is little of contemporary relevance in this book on Contemporary India. But the section on Foreign Relations which is as perfunctory as other sections is truly contemporary. After 11 September 2001, 'the story of relationship between India and the United States' has taken a new turn that promises to unite the two democracies into closer bonds on matters civilisational, economic, political, strategic and military'. Further Osama Bin Laden 'and similar other persons' - their names are not stated - 'have changed the whole world and has virtually prompted the United States to join hands with India in her fight against terrorism'.