Left intellectuals today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh if he considered giving lessons on the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru the same as propagating ‘‘Left fundamentalism’’. Historian Irfan Habib who shared the dais with Prabhat Patnaik, Amiyo Bagchi and Geetha Hariharan at a Sahmat Press conference was responding to the Prime Minister’s observation on Saturday that history should be kept away from both forms of fundamentalism, Left and Right.Professor Habib said: ‘‘The Prime Minister is really playing into the hands of the RSS by saying so. I think the ball is now in his court. He should explain what he means by Left fundamentalism. Does he mean you promote Left fundamentalism if you teach Gandhi and Nehru?’’Professor Habib felt that the Prime Minister should be very careful when he is making such statements. ‘‘By saying so, he has accepted the RSS case.’’Geetha Hariharan joined in. She pointed out that she had recently gone through text books in BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and these even extolled Sati.Said Professor Bagchi, ‘‘The authors commissioned by the previous regime were simply incompetent. They even plagiarised, lifted entire chapters from American text books. The academic credentials of these BJP historians were questionable. And few of them had the stature and international recognition that the likes of professors Romila Thapar and Bipan Chandra enjoyed.’’
