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Journalism of Courage
Several historians, including those involved in the revision of the previous version of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), Friday said the latest deletions from NCERT textbooks “exposes the non-academic, partisan agenda” of the ruling establishment.
On Wednesday, The India Express first reported that the NCERT had deleted content pertaining to Mahatama Gandhi’s assassination and his assassin Nathuram Godse. Significantly, these deletions did not figure in the ‘list of rationalised content’ that was officially released by the NCERT in June last year.
In a statement, which was signed by historians and academics, including Mridula Mukherjee, Irfan Habib, Apoorvanand, Upinder Singh and Uma Chakrabarti, among others, they said the “selective dropping” of chapters and passages was of “great concern”.
“There has been no attempt to consult members of the teams that had prepared the textbooks, which included historians and school teachers, apart from members of the NCERT. The books were developed through a process of consultation and wide-ranging discussions. This was valuable not only in terms of content, but also in terms of pedagogy…” according to the statement.
The NCERT has deleted key passages on Gandhi, his assassin Nathuram Godse and the 1948 ban on RSS from Class 12 political science and history textbooks which are taught across India in schools affiliated to the CBSE. Many state boards also follow the NCERT curriculum.
The deletions, which were done quietly, have triggered outrage from the Opposition parties, which have accused the Centre of trying to “whitewash” history that inconveniences the BJP.
In the statement, the academics said notwithstanding the NCERT’s position that the deletions were part of a textbook rationalisation exercise taken up in the wake of Covid pandemic, “the selective dropping of NCERT book chapters which do not fit into the larger ideological orientation of the present ruling dispensation exposes the non-academic, partisan agenda of the regime in pushing through amendments to school textbooks.”
They said while it is understandable that periodic revisions of school textbooks are needed, “this can only be done in sync with the consensus of existing historical scholarship”.
“Also significant is the deletion of any mention of the role of Hindu extremists in the killing of Gandhi…It is important to stress that the present retrograde step by the NCERT to delete entire chapters and portions of texts from the history textbooks is not based on any academic or pedagogic consideration. Rather, the chapters deleted from the history textbook are precisely those which do not fit into the pseudo-historical schema of the ruling dispensation,” it added.
