First Test tube baby was in India 7500 years ago !

This is not just another claim by a ruling Hindutva BJP leader in India. Shockingly this was given as a  fact in school text books in Karnataka state of India !!!

Now with BJP out of power in the state, the current government is trying to weed out all such  Hindutva myths from textbooks.

Congress-ruled Karnataka has launched an exercise to “sanitise” school textbooks of “religious, political and mythological” content introduced when the BJP was in power.

The new books will be ready for distribution in 55,000-odd schools that follow the state syllabus when the next academic year starts in June. “We are not for saffronisation or Congressisation of textbooks as we believe political ideologies should have no place in school books,” B. Ramachandrappa, chairman of the panel of experts who reworked the textbooks, said today.

The Ramachandrappa-led panel, helped by 27 sub-committees that examined and then rewrote the books, has made significant changes in social sciences, language and science texts that the experts claimed were replete with mythological stories. One example was the description of Dronacharya as a “test-tube baby”.

“We have included lessons to promote secularism, gender equality, the importance of following the Constitution and national integration. Removing all kinds of biases was our main aim,” Ramachandrappa, a well-known Kannada writer himself, said.

To begin with, pictures of mosques and churches will be back. The BJP government had revised the books to include only photos of temples. “We received a lot of complaints about only temples being featured. The new books will have images of all places of worship,” Ramachandrappa said.

“Gender equality is another aspect we have focused on by including a lesson on Savithribhai Phule,” Ramachandrappa added, referring to the 19th century reformer and poet who fought for women’s rights.

Several decades ago, Zia ul Haq , the Islamist military ruler of Pakistan did similar things to text books in that country. Pakistan is still suffering from its aftermath. With BJP still ruling at the centre we can expect more injection of myths and religious hate in school textbooks run by central government.