from Sanjay Borkar in Margao
for Daijiworld Media Network - Margao (GA)

Panaji, Aug 13: The Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), through a memorandum, has demanded an explanation from the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (Goa Board) for excluding its representation from the recommendations sent to the NCERT with regard to the objections pertaining to the Std X history and civics textbook.

The Goa Board has sent a letter titled ‘Corrections to the Std X History text’ to the director of NCERT on June 10. This letter is said to have included the complaints made by various organizations from the society. However, the memorandum suggesting corrections submitted to Goa Board by the HJS, which has launched a state-wide agitation in this regard, dated March 27 has been excluded from this letter. The said memorandum contained 17 demands and it gave detailed information about the mistakes and objectionable text contained in the ‘textbook’. In spite of this, the Goa Board has not given the HJS' memorandum to the NCERT.

In this context, the HJS has sought the Goa Board’s clarification on the following points:-1) Why was the HJS’ correction memorandum not sent to the NCERT? 2) Why was correspondence with the NCERT with regard to the ‘text’ made only after information about correspondence was asked for? 3)  The letter sent to NCERT contains a letter sent by a different organization in the front followed by newspaper cuttings of news regarding the agitation staged by the HJS. 4) What does the Goa Board intends to convey to NCERT by doing so?  5) Why does the Goa Board discriminate between religions by giving biased treatment to a particular community?  6) Why did the Goa Board not forward all memorandums suggesting corrections, received by it, to the NCERT and finally when did the Goa Board receive a memorandum from the ‘Board of Islamic Education Karnataka & Goa zone’?

This samiti has demanded that the Goa Board provide clarification to all the above queries. All the above points invoke suspicion about the activities of the Goa Board.