What makes someone a “great” person? Is it their dedication to a cause? Their contributions to society and culture? Or simply that they are in a position of power?
The National Council of Educational Research (NCERT) has published text books in Madhya Pradesh showing images of what they claim to be great people. Among these people are Buddhist leader Dalai Lama and former South African president Nelson Mandela. However, there are also a few other names, including Sonia Gandhi, George W Bush, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf.
Is the NCERT mixing politics with education, or is it simply clueless about what would constitute a great leader. In which case, as a country we should be extremely worried that the body instituted with the responsibility of drafting text books and educating our country cannot decipher between great people and powerful people.
News service provider ANI picked up on this aberration by NCERT and tweeted a picture of the book. However, the mistake they made was to only single out Pervez Musharraf. Is it a deliberate attack on Pakistan or did they simply run out of characters on Twitter?
The contention here is that Musharraf should not have been the only one singled out by ANI. From this list, only two people can really be considered, “great”, and they are definitely Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. The other four are politicians and individuals in positions of power.
If Pervez Musharraf doesn’t deserve to be there, neither do Gandhi, Bush and Vajpayee.