The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has launched a strong protest against what it calls a “deliberate attempt” by the Communist Party-led Kerala government to distort history in school textbooks and teachers’ handbooks. The student organisation alleged that the recently published Class 4 Environmental Studies textbook and teachers’ handbook by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) contained “fake propaganda and serious errors” aimed at misleading young students.
ABVP pointed to two contentious issues in particular. The first, it said, was the description of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in a manner suggesting that he had fled to Germany out of fear of the British regime. ABVP leaders argued that this amounted to branding Netaji, one of India’s most revered freedom fighters, as a coward. The second issue was a map of India in the same textbook’s second chapter, where the names of Assam and Jharkhand had been omitted. According to the organisation, these errors were not accidental but part of a larger political agenda.
ABVP National Secretary Shravan B Raj accused the Kerala government of attempting to malign Bose’s legacy and of promoting anti-national narratives. “They attempted to tarnish the image of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a valiant freedom fighter, by claiming he fled India due to fear of the British, which is a blatant lie,” Shravan stated. He further added that the map errors amounted to “a campaign of breaking India by anti-national forces” and alleged that by omitting Assam, the government had extended support to the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions to invade the state. The omission of Jharkhand, a state with a large tribal population, was also described by ABVP as a deliberate act of disregard.
“The errors in the map of India are not accidental but part of a conspiracy to destroy the nation’s integrity,” Shravan asserted, warning that the ABVP would not allow such “vicious means to misguide innocent students” to go unchallenged.
ABVP Kerala State Secretary E.U. Eswaraprasad also condemned the matter, calling it a “heinous act” by a government that projects itself as a model in education. “We firmly believe this is a massive ploy by the ruling dispensation to spread poisonous narratives, harbored from the minds of anti-nationals,” he said.
The organisation confirmed that it had already submitted a formal complaint to Kerala’s Minister of Education as well as the Director of NCERT, demanding strict action against the officials responsible. ABVP said it would continue to campaign against what it described as “anti-national propaganda” in classrooms.
