No steps taken to make Punjab drug-free: Anurag Thakur

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Jalandhar, June 9

“Indianness is most important in education. After Independence, Indian values will be retained in education policy.”

Union Minister for Sports, Youth Affairs and Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said this today during the inaugural event of the National Conference on Recent Advances in School Education – RASE 2023, held at Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Jalandhar.

He said the previous governments propagated an education policy steeped in “ghulami ki mansikta” (psyche of slavery), which taught students about Mughals and British but the BJP government had done away with older norms to encourage factual learning in line with India’s ancient values. Taking a dig at the Chief Minister, he said, before building a digital jail, the state government should first ensure action against jailed gangsters.

Thakur said, “Vidya Bharti began the work of embedding Indian values in 1952. Some people say we shouldn’t look back. They say this out of fear. We are not restricted to Mughals and British. India’s educational history is most advanced if you look back thousands of years. Then why were we taught that only Akbar is great? A full page is written on Aurangzeb but Maharana Pratap gets only a few lines. Shaheed Bhagat Singh was called extremist and terrorist by the Congress. Why was this conspiracy devised to keep us bereft of our own culture? This should be discussed.”

“The previous governments taught selective history imposed on us by British, invaders, keeping away factual history. But the New Education policy will free us from that. It was awaited for 34 years but the country got it in 2020 under the Modi government. Our aim is to commemorate in every village those who freed India and those who ensured security after Independence,” he added.

Thakur said, “I would only ask the CM to first ensure that jailed gangsters don’t carry out criminal activities instead of talking about a digital jail. From murders of Moosewala to industrialists and sportsmen, jailed gangsters have been active behind the scenes. The government has also not taken any step to free Punjab from drugs, as they had promised.”