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Journalism of Courage
The NCERT textbooks are the centre of yet another political controversy with the incumbent government being accused of rewriting history taught to students in schools. What provoked this latest controversy and why have textbooks become a battleground for competing ideologies over the years?
Is this the first revision of textbooks since the NDA government came to power in 2014?
No, this is in fact the third round of revisions to NCERT textbooks over the past eight years.
* The first round, in 2017, was termed a “review” rather than a revision. Hrishikesh Senapaty, then-chief of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), cited the need to update the textbooks to reflect recent events and changes, including the landmark Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation, as justification for the exercise.
The review resulted in 1,334 changes across 182 books, with new references to schemes introduced by the Narendra Modi government, increased content on ancient Indian knowledge and practices, and a focus on nationalist icons who had been overlooked in the country’s collective memory, according to the BJP and right-wing advocates.
* Just a year later, in 2018, at the request of then education minister Prakash Javadekar, the NCERT initiated a second round of revisions, known as “textbook rationalisation”, to reduce the “syllabus burden” on students. According to Javadekar, NCERT textbooks were “cramped”, so he announced plans to reduce content by half across all subjects.
Ultimately, the Council achieved a 20% reduction, primarily in social science textbooks, while keeping cuts in mathematics and sciences to the minimum. This exercise led to the deletion of several chapters. Among the chapters deleted from History textbooks was one on clothing and how social movements influenced how we dressed, and another on the history of cricket in India and its connection to the politics of caste, region and community.
* Less than three years later, the NCERT announced a third round of textbook rationalisation. The official reason for this latest exercise was to reduce the curriculum load further, and to help students recover from learning disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In June 2022, the NCERT made public a list of changes and deletions in the reprinted textbooks that came into the market recently.
Why has the most recent round of revisions caused such a huge controversy when the first two rounds went virtually unnoticed?
The latest round of textbook rationalisation has resulted in some of the most sweeping changes in the curriculum since the NDA government came to power. These changes include removing all references to the 2002 Gujarat riots, reducing content related to the Mughal era and the caste system, and dropping chapters on protests and social movements.
Many of these changes are seen as ‘political’ — and the government is facing allegations of using the rationalisation exercise to align the curriculum with the ideology of the BJP, and to control what students learn in school.
Recent changes in NCERT textbooks, which have been criticised by academics and opposition parties, include the removal of a mention of Mahatma Gandhi’s unpopularity among Hindu extremists, and of the ban imposed on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the aftermath of his assassination.
Some of the changes appear to echo views expressed by members of the ruling establishment. So, as BJP leaders have often complained that medieval Muslim invaders have been glorified at the cost of others in traditional Indian history-writing, the content on India’s Muslim rulers has suffered some of the deepest cuts in the rationalisation exercise.
Is it true that school textbooks of history no longer include the Mughal Empire?
While some of the content on the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire has indeed been removed from the history textbook for Class 7, the Mughals have not entirely disappeared.
For instance, the chapter ‘The Mughal Empire’ in the Class 7 history textbook, Our Pasts – II, has undergone deletions — including a two-page table on the milestones and achievements of the reigns of the emperors Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. However, the chapter itself has not been removed. Students of Class 7 will continue to learn about the Mughals, though in lesser detail.
Have there been controversies around NCERT textbooks earlier?
NCERT textbooks are no stranger to controversies as they have, over the years, become the government’s medium for political communication and a battleground of competing ideologies.
New textbooks drafted in 2002-03, when the first NDA government (of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) was in power, were criticised for portraying the Muslim rulers of India as savage invaders, and the medieval period as a gloomy era of Islamic domination that cast a dark shadow over the brilliance of preceding Hindu empires. These textbooks were scrapped immediately after the UPA-I government came to power in 2004.
The UPA government made its own changes to school textbooks. In 2012, cartoons that were deemed derogatory to Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar were removed from political science textbooks. Academics criticised the decision, and NCERT advisers Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar resigned from their positions.
OK, but how does changing school textbooks benefit parties in power?
School textbooks have always been seen as playing a crucial role in shaping national narratives, and as a tool for cultivating a desired national identity. NCERT textbooks are read by more than 5 crore students in 18 states around the country, who are seen by political parties as a large captive audience with impressionable minds. It’s not just school students either — candidates preparing for competitive exams such as the Civil Services Examination, SSC, JEE, and NEET, also rely on these textbooks.
