At a time when the world stands united against racism in the midst of a pandemic, a school textbook in Bengal's Burdwan district is drawing criticism for calling dark-skinned people ugly.
An illustration in a primary school textbook describes the letter 'U' as 'Ugly' with a person of dark complexion in the picture, leaving parents fuming.
According to a report by India Today, parents protested the usage of an image of a black person as an illustration to explain the word ¡®ugly¡¯ under the letter ¡®U¡¯ in children¡¯s curriculum books on alphabet and words.
The book is of a pre-primary department of the government aided school Municipal Girls High School in West Bengal.
Sudip Majumdar, a teacher of Kolkata Bangbasi (Evening) College, told India Today, ¡°My daughter is studying in this Municipal Girls High School. I came across this subject while teaching my daughter. It is completely wrong to educate children by calling a black person ugly in this way."
"This book should be withdrawn soon. In any case, the education being given to children in the name of blacks will work to fill their tender hearts with inferiority complexes and discriminate against blacks. This is wrong,¡± he added.
The development comes when anti-racism protests have engulfed the US and other countries too, following the killing of a black man, George Floyd, in police custody.