Ambedkar cartoon controversy: Sibal apologises

Amid uproar in Parliament over a cartoon of B R Ambedkar in NCERT textbooks, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today "apologised" over the objectionable content, saying he has directed removal of the material and stoppage of distribution of books.

He appealed to political parties not to make it an issue for vote bank politics. "...I am willing to personally apologise for it though I was not the minister at that time in 2006. I was involved in the publication of the books," Sibal told reporters outside Parliament House.

He said there was no question of anybody trying to malign Ambedkar or anybody trying to make fun of him because that "I think will be against the secular ethos of our country."

Much before the issue came to Parliament, Sibal said he had taken action on it and set up a committee to look at the entire gamut of cartoons in textbooks and their content to ensure material of this nature is taken out of textbooks. "This issue came to my notice sometime towards April and we sought an explanation from NCERT and after the explanation had come, we took the decision on April 27 that this particular cartoon should be withdrawn from NCERT textbooks on political science," he said.

Sibal said the government today further decided that the textbooks which contain the cartoon shall not be distrubuted. The wholesalers, he said, have also been asked to stop distribution of the textbooks.