Renowned painters Sobha Singh and Nicholas Roerich have replaced
artist M.F. Husain in Himachal Pradesh text books, an official said
Thursday.
“We have decided to replace the chapter on M.F. Husain in the NCERT
Hindi book taught to class XI students from this session,” Himachal
Pradesh Board of School Education chairman Chaman Lal Gupta told
IANS.
He said that now a chapter on renowned artists Sobha Singh and
Nicholas Roerich would be included in the text books.
“A chapter on Sobha Singh and Nicholas Roerich would be taught to
the class XI students as they could play an important role to ignite
the young minds, whereas Husain’s chapter was totally irrelevant,”
he said.
The decision to introduce the new chapter was taken by the board at
its meeting Wednesday, Gupta said.
“The decision to remove Husain’s chapter from the next session was
taken last year. At yesterday’s (Wednesday) meeting, we decided to
include the chapter on Sobha Singh and Nicholas Roerich,” the
official added.
“The changes in the NCERT-prescribed book were taken as per the
guidelines of the NCERT. Every state has a right to change up to 20
percent of the content of NCERT books, so there is nothing wrong in
this regard,” he said.
One of the greatest Indian artists of the 20th century, Sobha Singh
was born Nov 29, 1901, in Punjab.
After partition, Sobha Singh set up his studio at Andretta, located
in the foothills of the Dhauladhar ranges in the picturesque Kangra
valley. His focus was on Sikh gurus and their life and work.
Nicholas Roerich was a Russian painter, philosopher, scientist,
writer and traveller, who set up his base near Kullu in 1928 where
he lived the last period of his life.