Indian school textbooks say 'Japan nuked US'

One textbook even gets the date of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi's assassination completely wrong

One textbook even gets the date of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi's assassination completely wrong (AFP/Getty Images )

School textbooks in India are full of errors that completely rewrite history, including one that says “Japan dropped a nuclear bomb on the US during World War II”, it has been reported.

Textbooks published by the Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training for state-run schools are allegedly riddled with factual inaccuracies, including: “Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on October 30, 1948." Gandhi was in fact killed in January of the same year.

The Gujarat's Standard 8 social science textbook - reportedly used by 50,000 students – was found to contain more than 120 factual, spelling and grammatical mistakes, the Indian network NDTV has said.

The local government has now ordered a probe into the textbooks, but has not yet removed them from classrooms, according to the network.

The State Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said: "We have set up a two member committee to look into these errors and make changes immediately."

Vasant Bhatt, Director, school of languages at Gujarat University criticised the government for not conducting “basic checks” before the books were distributed among children. “What is surprising is why basic checks were not carried out before circulating the books,” Prof Bhatt told NDTV.

“Books for classes six, seven and eight have been out in the market for quite some time now and the state government did nothing to spot it also.”