The National Curriculum and Textbook Board is publishing textbooks for 2014 without reinserting the biography of renowned politician late Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani in the Bangla books for class V and VIII ignoring the recommendation of a parliamentary watchdog.
The board, which is entrusted to develop curriculum and to print, publish and distribute free textbooks among schoolchildren, had dropped the biography of Maulana Bhashani from Bangla textbooks for Class V and VIII in 2013.
The board secretary Braja Gopal Bhawmik told New Age on Sunday that the publishing of textbooks for 2014 academic year already began and some books were sent to some districts.
The board chairman Shafiqur Rahman said that Bhashani’s life sketch was not reinstated in the textbooks, although the parliamentary standing committee on the education ministry recommended the reinstatement.
Replying to a query, he said that the board made the decision in line with the directives from the high-ups.
He, however, declined disclose the high-ups and said that an essay on Bhashani was still there in the Bangla textbook for Class IX-X.
The standing committee chairman Rashed Khan Menon said that it unfortunate that the board ignored the recommendation of the parliamentary watchdog.
The committee will look into the matter, he said.
As soon as the textbooks dropping Bhashani’s life sketch reached to students in January, thousands of followers of Bhashani had taken to the street pressing for the reinstatement of the biography in the textbooks.
The parliamentary standing committee on the education ministry in January asked the board to explain the reasons for dropping Bhashani’s life sketch from textbooks and expressed dissatisfaction over the decision.
As the board chairman’s explanation failed to satisfy it, the standing committee recommended the reinstatement of the life sketch Bhashani, a politician who fought all his life for the rights of the oppressed and against exploitation, imperialism and feudalism, in the books.
Leaders of Bhashani Anusari Parisahd, a platform of the Bhashani followers, said that a text on Maulana Bhashani spanning two pages was included in the Bangla textbooks till 2012 academic session but it was dropped from the textbooks this year to keep the new generation in dark about Bhashani and his contribution to the nation.
Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, born in Sirajganj in 1880, was a pioneering figure of grass-roots politics in the British India and mass movements. He led the mass uprising of 1969 that gradually changed the course of history of this land, leading to the birth of Bangladesh.
In May 1976, he led the Long March demanding demolition of the Farakka Barrage constructed by India to divert flow of Ganges waters inside its territory, triggering the drying up of the River Padma and desertification of Bangladesh. He died in November 1976.
-With New Age input
