AHMEDABAD: Gandhi is not so great, but Hitler is. Welcome to high school education in Narendra Modi''s Gujarat, where authors of social studies textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks have found faults with the freedom movement and glorified Fascism and Nazism.

While a Class VIII student is taught ''negative aspects'' of Gandhi''s non-cooperation movement, the Class X social studies textbook has chapters on ''Hitler, the Supremo'' and ''Internal Achievements of Nazism''.

The Class X book presents a frighteningly uncritical picture of Fascism and Nazism. The strong national pride that both these phenomena generated, the efficiency in the bureaucracy and the administration and other ''achievements'' are detailed, but pogroms against Jews and atrocities against trade unionists, migrant labourers, and any section of people who did not fit into Mussolini or Hitler''s definition of rightful citizen don''t find any mention." They committed the gruesome and inhuman act of suffocating 60 lakh Jews in gas chambers" is all the book, authored by a panel, mentions of the holocaust.

The section on ''Ideology of Nazism'' reads: "Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government within a short time by establishing a strong administrative set up. He created the vast state of Greater Germany. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race. He adopted a new economic policy and brought prosperity to Germany.

He began efforts for the eradication of unemployment. He started constructing public buildings, providing irrigation facilities, building railways, roads and production of war materials. He made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant within one decade. Hitler discarded the Treaty of Versailles by calling it just ''a piece of paper'' and stopped paying the war penalty. He instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people".

A few classes junior, students in Gandhi''s home state read that the Bapu really may have been overrated. In the chapter on ''Gandhian Era and National Movement'', there''s a section sub-headlined ''The Negative Aspect''.

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