Fig above is a cartoon from class 11th book of NCERT on which huge row has been has been erupted. Politicians across the party line has criticised it and successfully demanded its removal. it ensued resignation of two of the members of expert committee involved in making the book.
There is no denying the fact that Dr. Ambedkar was a Ved Vyas of indian constitution, as descibed by Pranab Mukharjee. It is also undisputed fact that they(Ambedkar & Nehru) were the greatest leaders this country has ever seen. But at the same time it is also undisputed fact that this cartoon was published in their lifetime and they never complained about it. For the record Pandit Nehru himself once said to the same cartoonist not to spare him.
Prejudicing children's view: No
Politician's best reason for this protest is that they don't have problem with the cartoon but by the fact that it appeared in "children's " textbook which can prejudice their views towards our founding fathers.
First, please tell them that it is the class seven book which encourages students to protest and teaches them the means to protest in democracy. Second, a sixteen year old mind is getting prejudiced by a cartoon appeared in the book but at 18 years he is able to vote. so, at 18 we can vote to choose MP but at 16 we are not able to think conclusively about politics. So, we want to create an electorate unaware of different sides of politics.
Third, everyone has its own viewpoint of interpreting a cartoon. And in my view the cartoon is actually explaining and defending delays in judicial and law making processes which is one of the major issue of criticism by people these days. it may be interpreted as democratic institutions, especially judiciary and legislative, take time to complete a proposal since even the best of our leaders took enough time to create a constitution and created an excellent one. So it is a comment on a slow system rather on individuals.
Since NCERT wants to strengthen democracy by involving people in it, it not only explains the ways and means of protest and criticism of the government but also by this cartoon it gives students enough proof that criticism of govt was there as early as in 1949.
