Yet another omission, this time removal of references to freedom fighter and India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad from the new class 11 political science textbook by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), has invited sharp reaction from the Opposition parties.
While Congress lashed out at the Government saying there is a concerted attempt to “re-write” history and pass on a “distorted legacy built on lies”, CPI(M) alleged that such “vengeful rewriting of history” is aimed at creating a false narrative to further the RSS’ “ideological projects”.
The NCERT has, however, claimed that no curriculum trimming has taken place this year and the syllabus was rationalised in June, last year.
As part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise last year, the NCERT, citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” as reasons, dropped certain portions from the course including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, among others from its textbooks. The rationalisation note had no mention of any changes in class 11 political science textbook.
“Certain changes not finding mention of in the rationalised content book could be an ‘oversight’,” NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani reiterated.
In the class 11 political science textbook’s first chapter, titled ‘Constitution - Why and How’, a line has been revised to omit Azad’s name from the constituent assembly committee meetings. The revised line now reads, “Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or BR Ambedkar chaired these Committees.”
In the tenth chapter of the same textbook, titled “The Philosophy of the Constitution”, the reference to Jammu and Kashmir’s conditional accession has also been deleted.
“For example, the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian union was based on a commitment to safeguard its autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution,” says the dropped paragraph.