India's first President? Rajendra Prasad

India's First Vice-President? S. Radhakrishnan

India's first deputy Prime Minister? Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel

Did we jump a sentence? Something amiss? No, you didn't jump a sentence. What's amiss is India's first Prime Minister. Jawaharlal Nehru. Since Nehru is a name Bharatiya Janata Party would like to forget in general knowledge of India's recent history, the party has taken it to a whole new level.

The BJP is celebrating Deendayal Upadhyaya's centenary year birth anniversary with full enthusiasm. On this occasion, many schemes and programs are being devoted to Deendayal Upadhyay.

The slogan of Integral Humanism and Antodya are being linked together and there is also a competition for naming of monuments and institutions in his name.

Following the aforementioned directions, the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party had also formed the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Birth Centenary Committee, which is organising a variety of programs related to Deendayal Upadhyaya among different sections of the society.

The then state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya himself took charge of this committee. Many more BJP leaders are involved in this.

A general knowledge competition has also been organised on behalf of this committee.

BJP Booklet BJP Booklet

For this, a booklet named Samanya Gyan 2017 (General Knowledge 2017) has also been published. This booklet is distributed among government and non-government schools to thousands of children.

This booklet of general knowledge mentions many things related to India's history. Competitions are being organised on the basis of this booklet.

MAHATMA GANDHI, NEHRU DO NOT EXIST IN THE BJP BOOKLET

Page number 34 of this 70-page general knowledge booklet issued by the Bharatiya Janata Party is headlined "First in India". This chapter covers India's first president, governor general, vice-president, Lok Sabha speaker and deputy prime minister among others. But the booklet conveniently ignores any reference to India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It is as if they did not find this information substantial enough.

It doesn't end there. The said chapter has no reference of India's first woman prime minister Indira Gandhi. It should be noted that the chapter has given importance to India's first woman chief minister Sucheta Kriplani but no mention whatsoever of Indira Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru.

Indira Gandhi, however, has been mentioned in the booklet as the first woman to be honoured with the country's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna.

Morarji Desai has been mentioned as the first prime minister of India who resigned from the post.

Page number seven of the BJP booklet has a chapter "Hamare Mahapurush" that talks about the great personalities of India. The list has Swami Vivekananda, Dr BR Ambedkar, Guru Govind Singh, Birsa Munda, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Nanaji Deshmukh, Madan Mohan Malviya, Dr Hedgewar, Vir Savarkar, Kabir Das, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Rani Laxmi Bai but not once have they mentioned Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi is not referred to as the father of the nation even once.

Page number 39 has a column titled "Who said what". Jawaharlal Nehru doesn't feature here either.

BJP Booklet BJP Booklet

Along with Mahatma Gandh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lal Bahadur Shastri, Shyam Lal Gupta, Subhash Chandra Bose, Swami Dayanand Saraswathi have been mentioned as prominent personalities. The list goes on and you can find Yudhishtir and Duroyodhan (yes, from the Mahabharata) as important personalities in Indian history.

The booklet also mentions Ved Vyas, Chanakya Neethi and Panchatantra.

FEATURING HISTORY

The first point stated in the headline Economic Scenario, on page no 41 - is the year in which the Planning Commission has been terminated by the Government of India.

The second and third points are on the NITI Ayog. In points appearing later, the RSS' sister organisation Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has been included as the largest labour organisation of India.

Countless points following are modest in their own ways too. The first point under the title of Sam-Samayiki (today's India) is - who gave the slogan "Make in India"? - Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

And then the further general knowledge focuses on the names of the plans of the Modi government.

The booklet also talks about the Indian Constitution and talks about the constitutions of countries the members of the Constituent Assembly referred. The BJP booklet said that Constitution of India is similar to the British Constitution and implies that the Constituent Assembly borrowed ideas from other countries rather than designing our own.

Talking about the history of Uttar Pradesh, the booklet says that Varanasi city is situated on Lord Trishul of Lord Shiva.

It is also worth noting that while talking about India's history, the list of Prime Ministers of Independent India is not included in this booklet. Nor is the list of Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh so far in this booklet.

FYI || Modi in Myanmar: PM visits Bahadur Shah Zafar's shrine, Kalibari Temple in Yangon ||

FYI || #BlockNarendraModi: Blocking anyone is no solution, dialogue should be open ||

| To read this copy in Hindi, click on this |