Congress leader Sonia Gandhi
Credit: Sansad TV via PTI Photo
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Monday slammed senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for her newspaper article on the National Education Policy (NEP).
Gandhi, the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, in her article 'The '3Cs' that haunt Indian education today' in The Hindu, said the introduction of the high-profile NEP 2020 has hidden the reality of a government that is profoundly indifferent to the education of India's children and youth.
Hitting out, Yadav said, "Madhya Pradesh which under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented the NEP. I condemn the article written by Sonia Gandhi in harsh words. I think she didn't go through the new education policy."
"We should be proud of our past. If someone says something exaggerated and communal, then he was the communal one. If we compare Shivaji Maharaj with Akbar or Aurangzeb, then our roots should be connected to Shivaji. We should have feelings towards the citizens of our country," he told reporters in Maheshwar in Khargone district.
He said the country respects Rahim and Raskhan for their devotion towards Lord Krishna, but some rulers, including the British, did not have any attachment towards India.
"Self-reliance, values should also come from education. There should be pride in our culture by connecting with education. We should also take a long leap towards the future. There is a need to walk away from all those things which enslaved the country in the past. An attempt has been made to do all this in the National Education Policy," Yadav said.
In her article, Gandhi said the Union government's track record over the last decade has convincingly demonstrated that in education, it is concerned only with the successful implementation of three core agenda items -- the centralisation of power with the Union Government; the commercialisation and outsourcing of investments in education to the private sector, and the communalisation of textbooks, curriculum, and institutions.
"The consequences of this single-minded push for centralisation, commercialisation, and communalisation have fallen squarely on our students. This carnage of India's public education system must end," Gandhi said in the article.