Eminent journalist of Meghalaya Patricia Mukhim on Thursday lashed at the teachers of Shillong’s Pine Mount School for unquestioningly accepting the wrong information that has been written about the Khasis in the ISC Sociology textbook for twelfth standard students.
The textbook, which has been written by Manjir Ghosh, mis-spelt the word Khasi as ‘Khashi’.
Moreover, it also mentions that the Khasis are inhabitants of Jaintia Hills district of Assam, which is a grave mistake as the Jaintia Hills are located in Meghalaya.
The textbook also gives some wrong information on the marriage rituals of the Khasis.
Sharing the pictures of the parts of the textbook that gives information about the Khasis on Facebook, Mukhim wrote, “I am shocked and appalled by what’s written about the Khasi people in this ISC Class XII Sociology text book. The spelling of Khasi is wrong and so are the facts. How can teachers of Pine Mount School accept this unquestioningly.. No wonder the rest of the country has wrong notions about us. Imagine Khasi women and polyandry. They can hardly get one man to stay put. This book is written by some Manjir Ghosh.”
Mukhim’s post, which had been shared over 200 times on Facebook, also shocked several people and many of them commented over the wrong facts given in the textbook.
One person commented on her post, “This book should be removed from the publishing house itself, it’s totally misleading. How could they release it without proofreading?”
“Facts are distorted, and the writer needs to rejoin an ISC school for a full 11 year course in the language,” another commented.