By IANS,
New Delhi : A artist-activist group Tuesday said the government should not withdraw a textbook cartoon featuring Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar under political pressure.
Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat) in a statement said the publishing of the cartoon was an academic matter and should not be treated “as one of mere executive discretion and it establishes a wrong precedent”.
“Whatever be the merits of the case against the cartoon, the matter should not be treated as one of mere executive discretion. This establishes the kind of precedent that should be avoided,” the statement said.
“Appropriate procedures should be followed, such as the setting up of a committee of academics to look into each case, so that summary judgments of the ministers concerned, under political pressures of various kinds, do not determine the contents of our academic syllabi,” it said.
The cartoon, made in 1949 by cartoonist Shankar, has been reproduced in a NCERT Class 11 political science textbook. It depicts late prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru with a whip in his hand chasing a snail, representing the Constitution, on which Ambedkar is seated.