According to the official, Potti Sreeramulu, known as the ‘Father’ of the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh, had nothing to do with Telangana.

History and Telugu textbooks will see most changes with inclusion of Telangana culture and history in the syllabi from the current academic year as per the revision ordered by the Telangana State Council for Higher Education (TSCHE).

These two are among the four subjects where the lessons have been revised with the other two being Public administration and Political Science. Sociology, Anthropology and Physics have also been ‘updated’, an official from the TSCHE said.

The revisions were done by different committees comprising senior faculty members from different universities appointed by the TSCHE to revise the common course syllabus for undergraduate students studying in TS universities and affiliated colleges.

The new syllabus in History will now include a separate chapter on Telangana’s formation and culture. It will also teach students about Hyderabad’s past, right from the Qutb Shahi era to the time of the Nizams.

Asked whether the information on Andhra Pradesh was omitted from the textbooks, the official, not wishing to be identified, said that it would be a part of “Indian History.”

According to the official, Potti Sreeramulu, known as the ‘Father’ of the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh, had nothing to do with Telangana. “His fight was to separate the State from the Madras Presidency,” he mentioned. He added that the present textbook will also talk of the 1969 agitation for the Telangana statehood and that the 2009 movement will be part of the ‘Contemporary History’ pages.

B. A. (Telugu) students will also be taught about personalities from Telangana like Komaram Bheem and Turrebaaz Khan. “Even poets and writers in the Telugu textbooks are from Telangana. Prior to this, only works of personalities from Andhra were being taught,” the official said.

The syllabi content and chapters have been changed since “only 30 per cent” of the literature mentioned in the earlier books have been taken from “non-State writers and poets.”

Though it has been more than a month since B. A. degree classes started in Telangana, the Telugu Akademi will take another month to publish the newly revised textbooks. “Till the new textbooks are printed and available for purchase, students have been asked to refer to research materials or books that have been advised with their syllabus,” said a senior TSCHE official.

All the revised material for the textbooks was handed over to the Telugu Akademi in the last week of June. But the printing schedule got delayed since subjects like Anthropology, Physics and Sociology also had to be updated.

“After revising and updating the chapters, proof-reading and design took some time,” he explained, adding that such delays were common whenever “textbooks are revised.”

“We also require Telugu textbooks for B. A. students in lakhs, even if History, Political Science and Public Administration textbooks may not be required in such numbers,” he said.