The judge was talking of introducing the text to class 1 students. Ramayana is a good book for children of this age. It is IMHO the greatest story ever told as it highlights the great virtues. Also the greatest moral from Ramayana is to love your parents more than yourself(contrary to Jesus Christ saying that love God more than your parents). This idea needs to be embedded in the minds of the children. Of course it is a bit too idealistic.
Now on the topic of Mahabharata. Frankly speaking except for the Gita part of Mahabharata, I find the epic to be of bad taste. I mean it is filled with immoral stories and all sorts of nonsense. Sometimes I think it is not even fit to be called an Indian epic as the lecherous stories told there are only heard in foreign countries. Now one solution is to edit the undesirable parts and present it to children. However the morals that would be inculcated in the children from the tale would be lost when these children would grow up and learn the real deal. After all any Indian adult reading the Mahabharata would hang his head in shame when one looks into the indecency there.
(P.S. Have you read the Mahabharata completely. If you had you will realize why it is not ideal.)
Will you embed this too?
Morality gems from bible.
To be a follower of Jesus you must hate your children.
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. -- Luke 14:26
For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. -- Leviticus 20:9
God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. -- Matthew 15:4
How can you hate your parents and yet not curse them?
Lot, who was a just and righteous man (2 Peter 2:7-8) and therefore a biblical model for fathers everywhere, offered his daughters to a sex-crazed crowd, and then got drunk and impregnated them.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes. ...
And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. -- Genesis 19:8, 31-36