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HomeOpinionNewsmaker of the WeekCongress to BJP, Ambedkar cartoons to 2002 riots, NCERT syllabus’ run-in with...

Congress to BJP, Ambedkar cartoons to 2002 riots, NCERT syllabus’ run-in with political axe

In the name of easing the students' burden, Modi govt has for the third time deleted crucial events from social science and History textbooks, including a chapter on Mughals.

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New books with “rationalised” syllabus have been introduced in schools around the country with the start of the new academic session this week. This rationalisation — in the name of “easing the burden” on students in the wake of Covid-19 — has led to some crucial deletions from the History textbooks, including an entire Chapter on Mughal history, references to caste and inequality, mention of 2002 Gujarat riots, and a portion about MK Gandhi’s life and his assassination by Nathuram Godse.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had in June 2022 released a list of the rationalised portion from their textbooks for Classes 6 to 12. However, when the printed books finally hit the market early this month, some silent deletions have also been made in the textbooks. While the NCERT maintains that the rationalised textbooks will only be used for one year, until the syllabus is changed as per National Curriculum Framework, the fact remains that the batches currently in schools will be devoid of learning some very important lessons in history. This is why NCERT is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.


3 instances of change

NCERT is the top academic body in India. It designs syllabus that are used in schools around the country. Although some private schools allow textbooks from private publishers, all CBSE-affiliated schools and government schools only allow NCERT books. Hence, what is mentioned in NCERT books is an important part of a child’s learning.

This is the third syllabus change/revision under the Narendra Modi government, which has been adding or removing portions in school textbooks to suit its political position.

The first syllabus change happened in 2017, when Hrishikesh Senapathy was the director of NCERT. At that time, however, the changes were called “revision”. Senapathy had said that the books needed to be updated to add a lot of new information. These included the Modi government’s policies such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and demonetisation. A chapter on Mewar’s Rajput king Maharana Pratap was introduced, and more information on Indian knowledge systems, ancient Indian philosophy, yoga and Ayurveda was added as part of the government’s agenda of “Indianising the education system”.

Another revision was announced in 2018 by Prakash Javadekar, who wanted to trim the syllabus to reduce the burden on students. The revision led to a 20 percent reduction on the overall syllabus, with major cuts in social science.

The current changes were announced during the Covid-19 pandemic which had forced students to miss out on many days of schooling. It’s the most controversial of the three instances of syllabus change because of the deletions of all mention of some of the most crucial moments in India’s history and politics. Children who will study from the current syllabus will not know about the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat and the Emergency — incidents that have come to shape India’s politics.


Also read: Indian education wedged a huge Hindi vs English class system. Only Rahul Gandhi can break it


There’s more to come 

In the past, the Congress-led UPA government had also made changes to NCERT textbooks. In 2012, cartoons that were deemed derogatory to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and father of the Indian constitution Dr BR Ambedkar were removed from political science textbooks. This caused a major controversy and resulted in Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar resigning from the textbook development committee.

The issue even reached Parliament, and there were demands not to remove the cartoons. However, ultimately, the books were published without the cartoons.

There is going to be another overhaul in NCERT books, once the syllabus has changed as per the National Curriculum Framework 2023. The last time NCF was released was in 2005, by the BJP-led NDA government, which had undone many changes that the previous UPA government had introduced.

While the NCF 2023 draft, which was released Thursday, has given a broad outline on how the syllabus should be formed, all eyes will be on the history and political science textbooks because that is where most tampering has been done with the syllabus in the past.

Views are personal. 

(Edited by Prashant)

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