Pandit Nehru goes the way of black sheep in MP

You would expect that our poor, bankrupt State governments in the Hindi belt woud have lots of things to worry about. Like water. Like roads. Like industries. Like female foeticide. But, no, they start basic in those parts. And the honourable government of Madhya Pradesh seems to be on the fast-track to frivolity.

After banning Ba ba black sheep and Twinkle, twinkle little star, the BJP regime of Shivraj Singh Chauhan now thinks that the solution to all the State's ills is to get rid off Pandit Jawaharhal Nehru from the textbooks—or at least to control what he says through the textbooks. It has decided to remove a poem on Nehru and one of his writings with a view to being "practical" and not putting "overemphasis" on any one individual.

While the poem Chacha Nehru mujhe bana do has been dropped from the Class I book, Nehru’s memoirs on his wife Kamala Nehru have been replaced by another of his writings Vasiyat in Class VII textbooks. The state school education minister denies any political motive and denies "saffronisation": ‘‘Why should we talk about only one person repeatedly, why not others?’’ asks Narottam Mishra.

Maybe, but surely governments have other things to do than to tinker with history and to tamper with little minds?