New Delhi: Former NCERT director J.S. Rajput and representatives of the Bhartiya Shikshan Mandal (BSM) told a parliamentary panel Wednesday that current history textbooks in schools have a lot of content glorifying Mughal rulers who invaded India, while sparsely mentioning the role of Indian rulers including the Cholas and Pandyas, which has resulted in distortion of ancient Indian history, MPs who attended the meeting told ThePrint.
BSM is an RSS affiliate working in the education sector.
“They (Rajput and Bhartiya Shikshan Mandal) said Indian history needs to be revisited and read in a holistic nature, and for that we need to go back to Vedic times as our history and culture is drawn from that period,” an MP, who is a member of the parliamentary standing committee on education, women, children, youth and sports, told ThePrint.
“They said that instead of reading history starting from 200 years of British rule, we should look at invasions dating back to 1,200 years. Rajput said we need to glorify our national heroes and give proportionate references to all periods of Indian history,” the MP added.
BSM representatives also mentioned several instances in NCERT textbooks where historical figures and dates have been “distorted”, another member of the parliamentary panel said.
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‘Distortion because of Communists & Leftists’
The panel, headed by BJP Rajya Sabha member Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, was hearing suggestions from senior officials of the education ministry, the CBSE chairman, NCERT director, retired NCERT officials and and representatives from BSM on reforms in contents and designs of textbooks, removing references to non-historical facts and distortions about national heroes from school books, as well as ensuring equal or proportionate references to all periods of the Indian history.
“Rajput said the distortion has happened because Communists and Leftists in the 60s and 70’s influenced the content of textbooks with their ideologies,” the MP quoted earlier said.
After hearing the suggestions Wednesday, the parliamentary panel decided there was a need to hear the views of more stakeholders in the field of education, before making any changes in textbook content.
“Today, we have heard the perspective of only a few individuals. But the committee felt that there is a need to hear the views of other organisations and individuals for a larger perspective before submitting our report,” another member of the panel said.
The committee, the member added, is likely to meet again on 21 January.
Some of the members also advised caution to to school education secretary Anita Karwal before adding new content. “One of the MPs told Karwal that it is important to see what is being dropped from the existing textbooks to accommodate new content. There is a need to have a holistic perspective on history,” another MP, who is also member of the panel, said.
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Indian HISTORY should be re-written and that with an open mind and in a completely unbiased way. Certainly HISTORY has been distorted . Now that the matter has come to light it should be revisited.
If this current panel have proof of history rather than their wishful thinking, so be it. But let them not vmeddle with history for political gains and let them not play on people’s emotions. History sod reflect what has really happened not what is happening in the minds of these fundamentalists.
I fully agree that we need to revisit history especially our ancient history. Our history textbook needs to glorify our ancient period remarkably the wonder that was India during the age of vedas and our scriptures .Imagine India the world first plastic surgeon as Sushruta and Ayurvedas . Indians worshiped nature and were so environment friendly. We knew long before everyone the distance between the sun and earth .Aryavart was a landvof many medicinal herbs and had many life saving drugs which we now come to know.It was a vishwaguru in many such field .the list is countless and our children have the right to know this.
Same goes for the mughals ,we should talk more about provincial rulers and talk about them and their contribution to the Indian history.same goes for the colonial period.Our children needs to know the real history.
I agree to that point… It’s great that they have acknowledged and took a step ahead.
First things first. Change the name from his-story to our-story.
Why didn’t you publish my yesterday’s reply?
I had written it with so much difficulty and mehnat! I want my work back. Please
Why didn’t you post my last reply?
There can be only two possibility (and i am being impartial to my oun prejudices on my best in writing this)
First that we have, till now read a distorted and manipulated history meant to shape our mentality in a certain direction for some mean reason. Which is Alarming! as the books and what we read in schools as kids has the most powerful impact on our minds.( It is well renowned in the scientific research field that the biggest enemy to new discovery is our stubborn belief of something) . It is our design to accept what is written in books as true and ideal.There is only good or bad. Childhood is a time our minds are shaped and our views of the world formed . Its a time when if taught baad things we can become bad, and if taught good things we can be the best of people from the very interior. So it must be filled up with what is unaltered and impartial so that we get the opportunity to explore our own belief. It should teach them to love everyone and respect their and other’s culture.
For example, about the repressions of the British. They are picturised as the most cruel rulers and the situation of the people in their era un-tolerable. But from what my grandpa tells about his village I can’t get the idea of too much repression. True that their situation was not good at all. Very little law and order etc.. But that was the case with the Indian rulers too. Can it be that the Britishers’ ways were not as severe as we are taught? They always say it used to be a golden bird before. But isn’t there a possibility that if we compare our thoughts with those of people of some other countries, they might differ because so much of our thoughts are dependent on only one source?
Or second there is a chance that this news is just an attempt to do it (just like they are monetising news channels)
Again I am not an expert to comment anything serious in this matter and haven’t touched history for last two years since class 10. But I just want to say that more care need to be taken in this matter than people think there is need of…
the irony is, historians like Ram Guha, have acknowledged the role of marxist historians in meddling with the content school history text books right from the days of noor ul hasan. but he never puts effort to correct / rectify it. and if the govt. does he will spit vitriol in left media outlets ( ndtv, scroll, satyagraha, telegraph, wire , india forum, caravan ,,… the end less list…
And then Ram Guha adds salt to the wound , by writing in Caravan, that the right doesnt have great historians ( intellectuals) though it has many ideologues.
Arey jab tum mauka nahin doge , to log banenge kaise…. and see …. cleverly he accepted the krea univeristy position . in couple of years it will become den of left historians .. .and the feed forward loop continues….
if he had honesty, courtesy and decency , he would have recommended vikram sampath to krea.. but im sure he wont…
It’s about time the ncert trash is scrapped and rewritten. While we are at it, send Romila Thapar and Irfan habib to jail for treason .
I completely agree, the liberals and communist historians are infatuated with Moghuls for that matter any muslim ruler, time to correct the doctored history.