A government-aided school school in West Bengal has used an illustration of a black skinny man to expand the letter ‘U’ as ugly
Bengaluru: The whole world stands united at a time when the death of George Floyd has hurt all of us.
We have seen massive protests taking place in the United States of America and even to some extent in India.
But have the lessons been learnt?
Seems no. India Today reported an incident in which a dark complexioned was called “ugly”.
The photo shows this skinny man and under it, the letter “U” expands as ugly.
This illustration comes in a children’s book on alphabet and words in a government-aided school.
So parents of a primary school in Burdwan staged a protest against it.
India Today quoted Sudip Majumdar, a teacher of Kolkata Bangbasi (Evening) College, as saying, “My daughter is studying in this Municipal Girls High School. I came across this subject while teaching my daughter. It is completely wrong to educate children by calling a black person ugly in this way."
"This book should be withdrawn soon. In any case, the education being given to children in the name of blacks will work to fill their tender hearts with inferiority complexes and discriminate against blacks. This is wrong,” he added.
The website further quoted Swapan Kumar Dutt, District Inspector of School Primary Education that he did not want to react on the issue. But later it added he did express his willingness to change the book.
He said, “This kind of book is not an official book given by the school. We will still talk to the school about it. If needed the book should be changed.
Such incidents are truly a sad commentary on how the seeds of discrimination and differentiation are sown in young minds.
The conceiver of such ideas should be brought to book for installing a wrong notion of beauty and ugliness in minds which have the capacity to grasp things early and carry a great risk of carrying perpetuating the thoughts for a greater part of their lives.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.