Govt. humours MPs-may ban all text toons
A humble letter from a teenager
Dear politicians,
I write this letter as an 18 year old teenager who has read those
Civics books in school that have stirred a hornet’s nest in the parliament.
Civics is a subject which is far from favourite for a large number of students.
The vast amount of theory that has to be mugged up makes it a very dreadful subject.
But thanks to the NCERT advisors who came up with the innovative idea of
introducing cartoons in textbooks to make them more interactive.
I remember whenever I got bored of reading a chapter I used
to flip through the pages, glance at those cartoons and have a chuckle.
Contrary to politicians who scrutinized and analyzed a cartoon, as if it was
India’s foreign policy and tried figuring out who exactly is being whipped in
the cartoon-the snail or Dr.Ambedkar.
Yogendra Yadav, one of the NCERT advisors of these textbooks
said in a news show that there was an article in the New York Times which mentioned
that these books were a symbol of the fact that Indian democracy has gained a
level of maturity. I am sorry to say but thanks to our politicians, now it’s
been proved all wrong.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “Cartoons are for
mature minds: not for children”. This brings me to a question-If these children
are not being considered mature enough to understand even simple political
cartoons at the age of 16 or 17,how exactly are they expected to vote at the
age of 18 and decide which politicians should lead the country.
Seems like Mamta
Banerjee had set an ideal precedent for all politicians by reacting fiercely to
an innocuous cartoon.If this is the kind of ‘poriborton’ that India is moving
forward to, I would say-God bless our country!
Anyway, cartoons or no cartoons today teenagers in India do
not think very highly of politicians. Not to mention the rampant corruption and
viewing of pornographic videos inside the parliament. Stopping the distribution
of these textbooks has erased even those residual hopes that one day teenagers
in India will look up to the politicians and say, “I feel proud that people
like these lead India”.
