General Bipin Rawat during his tenure as Army Chief had suggested an overhaul of the school curriculum in Jammu and Kashmir as he felt that the content in textbooks was radicalizing the youth of Kashmir.
He was highly concerned about the issue of school children getting radicalized and also at times indulging in stone-pelting at security forces.
However, the then education minister in the BJP-PDP government Altaf Bukhari hit back at General Rawat and said the Army should not meddle in the education affairs of the state and concentrate on its own job.
He said the “Army has its job, they should focus on it. If they do their work well a lot of this problem of separatism would be addressed”. Buukhari has now quit PDP and set up his own J&K Apni Party.
General Rawat had stressed for a relook at the syllabus that leads children into believing that they were not part of this country. The textbooks in schools of Kashmir have two maps, one of India and the other of J&K, which develops a sense of separate identity.
General Rawat suggested that some stone throwers in Kashmir were youths from government schools, and stressed the need to reform the education system. “If you go to any Kashmir school, you will find two maps — one is the map of India and one is the map of Jammu and Kashmir. There are always two maps in every classroom. Why should there be a map of Jammu and Kashmir? If you are putting a map of Jammu and Kashmir, then you may as well put a map of every state,” he said.
“What does it mean to children that I am part of the country but I also have a separate identity. So, the basic grassroots problem lies here is the way the education in Jammu and Kashmir in government schools has been corrupted,” said Rawat.
The Ministry of education has after the abrogation of Article 370 directed the NCERT to revise the curriculum followed in the schools in J&K. Steps have been initiated to revise the syllabus of schools
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus has also been introduced in mathematics and other subjects in class-X.
After becoming the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Rawat visited the forward areas of J&K and Ladakh union territories several times to review the security situation.