New Delhi: A Class X English exam question on “disobedience of wives” that sparked a huge controversy and flagged as deeply misogynist, will now be dropped, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced on Monday amid outrage in the parliament.
“The passage is ‘not in accordance with the guidelines’ and has been dropped; students will be given full marks for the question,” the CBSE declared moments after Congress president Sonia Gandhi raked up the issue in parliament.
The passage, that went viral on social media, had sentences like the “emancipation of the wife destroyed the parent’s authority over the children” and that “it was only by accepting her husband’s way that a mother could gain obedience over the younger ones”.
Offensive portions read: “The mother did not exemplify the obedience upon which she still tried to insist…In bringing the man down from his pedestal the wife and the mother deprived herself, in fact of the means of discipline.”
Another part of the passage said, “women gaining independence is the main reason for a wide variety of social and family problems” and if “wives stops obeying their husbands, that is the main reason children and servants are indisciplined”.
Led by the Congress, DMK, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the National Conference leaders staged a walkout in Lok Sabha on the matter.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi condemned the “blatantly misogynist” passage and demanded an apology from the Narendra Modi government.
Her son and daughter, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also raised voices against the passage.
