Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh: October 24: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today demanded the immediate withdrawal of newly released chapters of class twelve history books of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), saying the Board had not only distorted history but had also defamed the Sikh Gurus and the religion.
In a statement here, former Education minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said the new chapters, which had been released online had numerous mistakes and factual errors. “Even more serious is the sinister attempt to distort historical facts related to the Sikh Gurus and objectionable observations about Sikh dharmic granths. Education minister O P Soni should be sacked and PSEB Chairman Manohar Kant Kalohia should be removed for these misdemeanours immediately”, he added.
Demanding action against Board officials who had let these distortions be released to children online, Dr Cheema said the Sikh panth would never allow the Congress government to play with the history of Sikhism as well as that of the Punjab State. He said the chapters should be withdrawn immediately or the SAD would launch an agitation on this issue.
Dr Cheema said it seemed the Congress government wanted to deprive the younger generations from their history and culture by putting misleading and wrong facts about Guru Sahibans and Sikh religion into their history books. He said there were a horrifying number of wrongs facts and misinformation about the Sikh Guru Sahibans in the 3rd and 5th chapters of the modified history book.
Giving further details, the SAD leader said that in a reference, it is written that the tenth Guru Sahib looted a village named Alishan to show displeasure to Bhim Chand. He said even facts about the martyrdom of Shri Guru Arjan Dev ji were distorted to give the false impression that Guru Sahib was just physically tortured after his punishment was converted into fine and not executed by the Mughal ruler. “Apart from this, utter disrespect was shown toward the Gurus by not writing their names in the proper manner. Even cities connected with Sikh history have been shown disrespect by deleting suffix ‘Sahib’ from their names,” he added.
The former education minister also noted that only one chapter of the class eleven history book had been released online till now even as examinations were a few months away. Termning this as criminal negligence, Dr Cheema said even in the case of the class twelve history book only five chapters had been released and these too contained distortions.
