ICSE calls Shahid Bhagat Singh ‘terrorist’, court says change it

A Delhi court has directed Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) to remove defamatory references to freedom-fighters in its history and civic book from the next academic session.

The book published by Goyal Brothers Prakashan and written by DN Kundra has a chapter — Revival of Terrorism — in which Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal have been referred to as “militants and extremists”, while Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev as “terrorists”.

The court wants these leaders to be called nationalists and revolutionaries.

Additional district judge Inderjeet Singh also restrained ICSE from publishing the book with the wrong information.

While Maharashtra has 118 ICSE schools, Mumbai and Delhi have 60, NCR 30. Over 1 lakh students from Maharashtra opt for ICSE board.

The court’s order came on a petition by Dina Nath Batra, national convenor of Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and others seeking deletion of defamatory passages  in the Std-X history and civics Part-II book.

The petitioners had requested the court to direct ICSE to stop teaching from the books with immediate effect as misleading information could poison the minds of youth.

“We are deeply aggrieved by the defamatory, derogatory, insulting and objectionable language used to refer to freedom-fighters who laid down their lives for our country and the people. It is unfortunate that despite getting freedom in 1947, such objectionable and insulting portions regarding our historical past have not been removed from the course material,” their petition reads.