History book row: Our stand fully vindicated, says SAD

The opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which had alleged that chapters on Sikh Gurus were deleted by from Class 12 history book, today said its stand on the issue "has been fully vindicated" with the state government announcing setting up of a panel to review the syllabus.

The party described the government's decision in this regard "a correct though belated step".

In the wake of the controversy, the Punjab government has decided to put on hold the release of class 12 history book till the newly-constituted oversight committee examined it and decided on the way forward.

"This is precisely what we have been demanding all along and this is just the step which former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had urged CM Amarinder Singh to take.

"Had the government listened to him then, the entire unsavoury controversy could have been avoided," senior vice president of the SAD Daljeet Singh Cheema said in a statement.

"Nevertheless, we are happy that the government has finally done the right thing. We also welcome the inclusion of eminent and respected historians in the committee and we trust them to undo the injustice done to our great and glorious history," he said.

Amarinder Singh had yesterday announced the constitution of a six-member oversight committee, headed by eminent historian Prof Kirpal Singh, to examine the recommendations of the 2014 panel that had reviewed the history syllabus, and to oversee all history books in the future.

Besides Kirpal Singh, the committee comprises former Vice Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University Prof. J S Grewal, former Pro-Vice Chancellor of GNDU Prof Prithipal Singh Kapur, Professor Emeritus of History in Panjab University Indu Banga, besides two eminent historians to be nominated by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC).

Following the state government's decision, the SAD deferred the "full-fledged" party meeting on the subject, scheduled to be held in Amritsar on May 11.

Cheema, however, demanded that in the meantime, the old syllabus containing the history of the Sikh Gurus and Punjab's heroes and martyrs be restored immediately for teaching to class 12 students as before, so that they do not suffer any loss during the current session.

"We have gone strictly on academic merit and even today, we stick to the principled path of reason to get the injustice undone. We do not believe in needless confrontation. Now that the government has accepted our plea and ordered a review committee, we have decided to indefinitely postpone the party meeting at Amritsar Sahib," he said.

The committee has been mandated to consider and report on the recommendations of the expert group constituted by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) in 2014, to review the changes made in the new history syllabus prescribed for classes 11 and 12 subsequent to the recommendations of the expert group, and to suggest corrections, if any.

The panel has been further asked to examine the contents of the text books prescribed for classes 11 and 12 and to suggest corrections for factual and other errors, if any, and to align, as may be practicably possible, the History syllabus with that prescribed by the NCERT.

Earlier this month, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had lambasted the opposition for trying to spread "misinformation" on a sensitive religious issue and had said that they had shown "gross irresponsibility" by making a "baseless" public statement without bothering to check the facts.

He claimed that the chapters pertaining to Sikh history had only been shifted from class 12 to class 11.