Criticising the recent comments of Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr Satyapal Singh, Bhattacharya said the minister had given them a topic of discussion on the birth anniversary.
Work of Islamic scholars may soon find a place in the syllabus of the state-run schools in West Bengal. Speaking to DNA on the sidelines of a seminar put upon the occasion of the birth anniversary of scientist Charles Darwin, professor Shilanjan Bhattacharya, head of the zoology department of West Bengal State University and advisor to West Bengal government's board of secondary education said he would recommend the inclusion of Islamic scholar's work on evolution in the state-run schools in West Bengal.
Criticising the recent comments of Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr Satyapal Singh, Bhattacharya said the minister had given them a topic of discussion on the birth anniversary.
"There have been scientists like Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, who had explained evolution 600 years ahead of Darwin. If Singh didn't like Darwin's theory, he would reject the theory with more vigour just by looking at Nasir's name. Evolution is one of the worst written chapters in Indian textbooks. I'd recommend the inclusion of Tusi's work in textbooks in West Bengal schools," Bhattacharya said.
He said that although the minister's comment had not been supported by the Union HRD minister, it should send an alarm bell ringing. "It is only the tip of an iceberg. What the minister said was a part of the conspiracy of saffronisation of education in India. I am sure about it and it is not only RSS. It is also attracting its peripherals towards such distortions," Bhattacharya added.
Dr Nilesh Maiti, secretary of Breakthrough Science Society, the organisation which put up the event, said they would celebrate February 12 to 18 as Darwin's week. "If the minister's proposal is accepted and Darwin's theory is excluded from school and college curriculum, students would be deprived of the scientific definition of human evolution," he said.
Singh on January 21 had said that Darwin's theory of human evolution was scientifically wrong and needed to be changed in school and college curriculum. "Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, has said they saw an ape turning into a man," he had said.
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