Teach Joshi a lesson, Cong to education ministers

With the Congress and the Left parties waking up to the magnitude of the controversial changes in school textbooks, HRD Minister Murli Manoh...

With the Congress and the Left parties waking up to the magnitude of the controversial changes in school textbooks, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and his student NCERT Director J.S. Rajput are in for trouble.

On orders of the party high command, that has reportedly told Congress-ruled state governments to pull up their socks, seven state education ministers have landed in Delhi for the NCERT general body meeting tomorrow afternoon.

While those who are already here are busy sharpening their claws for the meeting by reading up and making copious notes about the changes introduced by the BJP government, a meeting has been organised tomorrow morning to brief latecomers before the final encounter with Joshi and his student.

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‘‘One has to understand the technical details. Otherwise these people will lie again and we won’t be able to detect,’’ said one Education Minister. This is in sharp contrast to the last NCERT general body meeting on December 13, 2000 when only seven state education ministers, only two of them from Congress-ruled states, had attended the NCERT meeting.

The BJP got away with introducing vast changes in the school syllabi partly because it did not inform states about them and partly because state governments have been lackadaisical in their approach to education.

Among those already here are Chhattisgarh Education Minister Satya Narain Sharma, H. Vishwanath from Karnataka, Laxmi Narain from Pandichery, Narendra Singh Bhandari from Uttaranchal, Shanti Lal Dhariwal from Rajasthan, M. Seth from Manipur and H.T. Narain from Assam.

West Bengal Education Minister Kanti Biswas is expected to arrive tonight followed by more Congress ministers from Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra. And most of them seem geared up for the battle ahead.

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‘‘Joshi has lied to Parliament and the Supreme Court about having consulted states before changing the curriculum. In the last meeting, states were informed that the new National Curriculum Framework for Education has been introduced. There was no discussion,’’ charged Chattisgarh Education Minister Satya Narain Sharma.

Sharma said the Centre has shied away from calling all state education ministers for fear of getting ‘‘exposed’’. ‘‘But this will not happen now. We will demand explanations for every wrong of theirs,” he said.

The West Bengal Education Minister went a step further: ‘‘A breach of privilege motion should be initiated against Joshi. He has lied to Parliament. These people have destroyed the NCERT. We will see what they have to say at the meeting tomorrow.’’