SHILLONG, June 16 – In its bid to undo the ‘saffronisation’ of education initiated by the previous NDA regime, the present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has started a ‘detoxifying’ process, Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh said on Tuesday, reports PTI. “The process got underway with the setting up of a three-member panel of eminent educationists of the country three days ago,” Singh told reporters here.
“We are not desaffronising education but detoxifying it. The panel was asked to look into the issue and give reports by 15-20 days,” he said. Seeking to go deep into the problem, the HRD minister said: “Already thousands of textbooks were printed (by the previous grovernment) and if all of a sudden we issue some instruction for withdrawing those, the student community would be in serious problem. So we did not wish to do it.”
Singh said the three member panel consisted of Prof S Sattar, Radhakrishnan Professor of National Institute of Advanced Studies in Banglaore, Prof JS Grewal, Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University and eminent historian Prof Barun De. Asked if his ministry would do away with the astrology and ‘Saraswati Vandana’ introduced by the previous regime, he said: “One can introduce anything one wants, but if the people do not want to learn, what is its use?” Singh however said he did not think astrology was bad ‘per se’ as it has a basis on astronomy which is a pure science.