India Tomorrow
Jaipur, July 23— A publishing house in Jaipur has apologized for objectionable content on Muslims in a text book for B.Ed. after a delegation from the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) met them and drew their attention to the content. In its written apology, the publishing house has also ordered recall of the book from the market.
Controversial content
On page 22 of the Rajhans publishing house’s B.Ed. ‘One Week Series’ book, the Q. No. 21 had this question: “What steps should we take to end religious fundamentalism and bias?” As answer to the question, seven steps were suggested: “1) Equal opportunities to people of all religions in schools, institutions and colleges. 2) Religious education should be stopped in madrasas. 3) All should be taught religious tolerance. 4) A minimum sentence of two years should be given to those who do religious discrimination. 5) Muslims should understand that they are sons of Hindus. 6) Muslims want to establish their government all over the world, and for this, they have spread terrorism, which they call Jihad. But they cannot establish their supremacy through terror. For this they need brotherhood and harmony because after death one needs ‘two yard land’. 7) Due to religious bias, communal feeling is spreading, particularly, Hindu-Muslim communities are engaged in clashes due to communal bias and fundamentalism, for example, breaking of idols, killing cows, spreading colour on Muslims, blowing music outside mosque….”
A delegation of APCR rights group comprising joint secretary Muzammil Rizvi, Jaipur vice president Mohammad Ansar Khan, Journalist Raheem Khan and others visited the head office of the Rajhans Prakashan in Jaipur and submitted a written complaint. The official at the publishing house instantly admitted the mistake and offered apology. In its written apology, they also promised to recall the controversial book.
Apology from Publishing House
“For the last fifty years, text books for B.Ed. are being continuously published by Rajhans Prakashan. We acknowledge that some objectionable matter has been published against Muslim community mistakenly in Question no. 21, on page 22 of our book titled ‘B.Ed. One Week’. We regret this and offer our apology…We don’t intend to hurt the sentiments of a particular community. We are having the copies of this book sent back to us by the retailers. This mistake won’t be committed by us in the future,” reads the apology from the publishing house.
They also said that they had copied the controversial content from a book “Swayn Ki Samajh” (Understanding oneself) published by Thakur Publication, Lucknow.
In a statement, APCR said: “The Rajhans publishing house has assured us that they would recall the copies of the book from the distributors and they would not repeat the mistake in future. They have informed the Thakur Publication also. We (APCR) will meet the officials of Thakur Publication.”
