After RSS top brass, Shashi Tharoor bats for changes in textbooks

Just two days after Manmohan Vaidya, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's communications department, batted for revamping the education system based on "the ethos and history of our nation", Congress MP Shashi Tharoor here on Sunday expressed his thoughts in a similar vein.

Tharoor was participating in a session on "Remembering the Raj" at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival.

In response to a question from the audience, the Congress MP expressed his desire for changes in the education system to include the "Indian civilisational aspects".

"The British wanted to colonise the Indian mind. Whatever education was brought to India that was to further strengthen the Raj and to colonise our behaviour.

"It is sad that even after 70 years, though we study Shakespeare, we have not been teaching Kalidasa to our children," Tharoor said.

"I am very much in favour of having Ramayana and Mahabharata taught in our schools. This should be seen as enriching our education system with our cultural heritage," he said.

Tharoor, however, expressed his disapproval on "injecting a particular political ideology" into the education system and contented that "only the civilisational aspect should be introduced in our text books".

A regular at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Tharoor is among the biggest crowd pullers.