MM Jasim :
A total of 85 eminent personalities in a joint statement on Tuesday alleged that the government has twisted this year’s school textbooks to serve its propaganda purpose politically.
The signatories to the statement include Ahmed Rafique, Kamal Lohani, Jatin Sarker, Professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Syed Hasan Imam, Hasan Azizul Hoque and Dr Ajoy Ray.
They claimed that it was a planned move to turn the country into a communal one. The changes brought in the textbooks prove that the government has compromised with the communal quarters, they alleged.
Claiming there is a political motive behind the changes, they said, discrimination and division have been upheld between man and woman through the ‘disgusting mistakes’. “Our children have to be enlightened with the culture of non-communalism, but the government is hindering the path by including reactionary, narrow-minded and communalist elements in the textbooks,” they said.
They said the terrified emergence of militancy in the country is not possible to be curbed only by the law enforcement agencies without waging social and cultural movement.
“But the government is nurturing communalism in the textbooks which enter the children’s minds and spread throughout their sense like a poison of discrimination,” they added.
The government is frequently calling upon all to build the next generation in line with the spirit of the Liberation War, but it has backtracked, they said.
They also demanded withdrawal of the textbooks and punishment of the responsible persons “behind the intentional discriminatory changes” through a thorough investigation.
