'Working women responsible for rising unemployment'

Chhattisgarh textbook blames 'working' women for rising unemployment, (Representational PIC)

Raipur: In a major embarrassment to the BJP government here, a portion in the class 10 textbook in Chhattisgarh has come to light as it blames 'working women' for rising unemployment.

Reports on Wednesday claimed that the textbook, which has been published by Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education, mentions that the rate of unemployment after Independence has increased because women have started working in all sectors.

However, a teacher in the Jashpur district has taken a serious note of the issue and filed a petition in the state women's commission against the same.

Respomnding to her petition, the commission has vowed to take the matter up with Chief Minister Raman Singh.

This is not the first incident of misrepresentation of facts in the textbooks. In 2014, there was outrage in West Bengal after school text books labelled revolutionary freedom fighters as 'terrorists'.

The history textbooks for Class 8 described the activities of freedom fighters like Khudiram Bose, Jatindranath Mukherjee and Prafulla Chaki as 'extremism and terrorism'.

In 2013, the Maharashtra government had ordered the withdrawal of Class X geography textbooks that excluded Arunachal Pradesh from the map of India.

In 2012, textbook in a CBSE school had claimed that non-vegetarians lie, cheat and commit crimes.

The Chhattisgarh textbook incident also makes a mockery of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government which is keenly pushing for women empowerment and gender equality,