The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Congress rejects panel on textbook

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Congress rejects panel on textbook

Special Correspondent

‘It is packed with Marxist fellow travellers’

Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress party has rejected outright the high level expert committee appointed by the government to look into the controversial Class VII social science textbook on grounds that it was packed with Marxist fellow travellers.

In a statement here on Wednesday, KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala said that 17 out of the 18 members in the committee were Marxist or Left fellow travellers. He said the appointment of K.N. Panikkar, noted communist historian and Marxist fellow traveller, as chairman of the committee exposed the government and Education Minister M.A. Baby’s motives.

His appointment had made it certain that even small changes would not be made to the controversial portions in the textbook. The committee’s appointment was an eyewash and the intention of Mr. Baby, who had repeatedly stated that the textbook would not be withdrawn, was very clear, he said.

He said his party could not overlook the all-round demand for withdrawing the textbook and accept the government’s cold stand to it. If the Education Minister was indeed sincere about improving general education in the State, he should appoint a high power panel to re-examine the Kerala Curriculum Framework.

Youth Congress State president T. Siddique said his organisation, which was heading an agitation against the textbook, had rejected the proposed panel.

The expert committee was a CPI(M) package to fulfil its aim of protecting that party’s interests and objectives, he said while inaugurating a relay fast of youth activists demanding withdrawal of the textbook and handing over appointments in universities to the Public Service Commission.

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