What if your children are taught in school that television was not invented by John Logie Baird in 1926 but by Indian rishi – munis? Sanjay, using his “Divya Shakti” could provide live telecast of the Mahabharata to the blind Dhritarashtra. And when your children are asked to draw the map of India, they should include in it Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma, because that is Akhand Bharat (undivided India).

These are excerpts from the book Tejomay Bharat, which means shining India, by the book-ban man Dina Nath Batra. Tejomay Bharat is one of nine books which found their way to the curriculum of “supplementary literature” in schools of Gujarat. The Gujarat government, putting many parents in a predicament, on the eve of June 30, issued a circular to make a set of books by Batra part of their curriculum.

This circular was issued to more than 42000 Primary and Secondary government schools in Gujarat. This set of nine books includes Shikhan nu Bhartiyakaran, Tejomay Bharat, Prernadeep I, II, III and IV, Vidyalaya: Pravitiyon nu Ghar, Shikhsan ma Triveni and Vedic Ganit. These books are translated from Hindi to Gujarati.

Batra told Indian Express that he had met HRD Minister Smriti Irani few days ago and claims the she assured him of an overhaul in syllabi. The irony is that few days ago Samriti Irani said in Rajya Sabha that there were no plans to change the framework of the country’s education system.

Batra is the man who coerced Penguin India to pulp American Indologist Wendy Doniger’s celebrated book “The Hindus: an alternative history”.

According to an India Express report, the curricular issued by Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB) read, “These books on supplementary literature are aimed at imparting quality education. They will be provided free of cost to all government primary and secondary schools, public libraries and will be also available at GSSTB, Gandhinagar, for individuals interested in these books. These are to be incorporated from this academic session”.

Batra apparently wants national syllabus to be shaped according to his worldview. In an interview to Mint he said, “We want a total change in the system, we want ‘Indianness’ in the field of education”.

Page 53 of the book Tejmoy Bharat says, “We should not demean ourselves by calling our beloved Bharatbhoomi by the shudra (lowly) name ‘India’. What right had the British to change the name of this country? We should not fall for this conspiracy and forget the soul of our country”.

Batra recently accumulated ample attention, when he sent a legal notice to Orient Blackswan for their book titled “Communalism and Sexual Violence: Ahmedabad since 1969” by Dr Megha Kumar – the book has been withheld by its publishers as part of a “pre-release assessment of books”. Another book being questioned is “From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India,” by Shekhar Bandopadhyay.

Batra apparently wants to go further and create a national non-governmental commission to examine and approve syllabi. He has already begun holding monthly meetings with proposed committee members.