‘Consistent with Modi’s Bharat modern history’; ‘Whitewashing’: Oppn reacts to NCERT changes

The NCERT, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education, has maintained that the deletions are part of the textbook rationalisation exercise it had undertaken in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This rewriting of history has been an ongoing endeavour with the RSS-BJP. This is not the first time that this has happened. I recall that even in the first and second NDA governments in 1998-99, this particular project was being unveiled. But the only thing I would like to say is that you can distort history but you cannot erase it. The truth has a way of manifesting itself. Ultimately, history bears testimony to the fact that those who have tried to rewrite history have actually been consigned to the dustbin of history,” Congress MP Manish Tewari said, responding to a question at a press conference.

Sharing a screenshot of The Indian Express report, Congress general secretary in-charge (communications) Jairam Ramesh tweeted: “Whitewashing with a vengeance”.

Whitewashing with a vengeance https://t.co/1aKrP3sHRl

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 5, 2023

Rajya Sabha MPs Kapil Sibal and Manoj Kumar Jha also took to Twitter to criticise the deletions. Sibal tweeted that the deletions are “consistent with Modiji’s Bharat – Modern Indian history should start from 2014”. RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha, who also teaches at Delhi University, retweeted a post on the subject, adding, “They don’t understand that such ‘memory erasures’ cannot erase history.”

इतनी सी बात इन्हें समझ नही आती @UrmileshJ जी कि इस तरह के ‘मेमोरी इरेज़र’ से इतिहास नही मिटा करते। https://t.co/pncx7R048H

— Manoj Kumar Jha (@manojkjhadu) April 5, 2023

Responding to Sibal’s tweet, Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Shobha Karandlaje posted that the “BJP is only correcting your wrongdoings” as “facts that threatened Congress never made it to textbooks”, listing “barbarism of Mughals”, “era of Emergency”, “genocide of Kashmir Pandits & Sikhs” and “corruption of Congress”.

CONgress was the biggest manipulator of India’s historical facts!

Facts that threatened @INCIndia &never made it to text books were.

-Barbarism of Mughals
– Era of Emergency
– Genocide of Kashmir Pandit’s&Sikhs
– Corruption of Congress

BJP is only correcting your wrong doings. https://t.co/xnW1EfUzIk

— Shobha Karandlaje (@ShobhaBJP) April 5, 2023

In Congress-ruled Rajasthan, Education Minister B D Kalla said: “There should be no distortion with history. Mahatma Gandhi is the father of our nation. The facts surrounding his death should be presented as they are, and not after tampering. For some of the classes in Rajasthan schools, NCERT textbooks are used. We will examine the new books and take a decision on what to do next.”

Bratya Basu, his counterpart from West Bengal, said the TMC government in the state was against any “revision” of history. “In my opinion, deleting someone’s activities or some events which actually happened in the past, is basically an aberration from the true spirit to tell the real story in the form of history. We are against any revisionism in history,” he said.

Odisha’s School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash said he has asked the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) authorities to examine the changes made in the NCERT textbooks. Like in most states, SCERT prepares the curriculum for schools under the Odisha government. The BJD government in Odisha has also constituted a task force to study the changes made, and to recommend necessary changes to be made in NCERT curriculum, Dash said.

Kerala Education Minister and CPI(M) leader V Sivankutty said the state would not accept the central government’s attempt to present history “in a distorted manner”. “Preparation of the textbook with a narrow-minded political approach cannot be justified academically,” said the minister.

The education ministers of Telangana (BRS) and Andhra Pradesh (YSR-CP), P Sabita Reddy and Botsa Satyanaryana respectively, said their state boards would “scrutinise the changes” first and then decide whether these are to be incorporated in the curriculum.

Asked specifically about deletions on Gandhi’s assassination, Reddy said a committee set up by the Telangana government “will look into the reasons why it has been done and decide, including the dropping of Mughals”.

“While the state board uses NCERT textbooks, it has the option to decide whether changes suggested by the council are to be incorporated or not. The same applies for any changes that NCERT suggests this academic year,” said Satyanaryana.

In Bihar, Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Chowdhary said, “We are against any tampering with history.”

In a tweet, CPI general secretary D Raja said the NCERT was behaving like the “National Council for Eradication of Rationality & Truth”.

Stating that nobody can “twist the truth” these days, DMK MP Kanimozhi said “students will be told the truth at any cost”. “It is scary that they want to go back and change history the way they want. Not only textbooks, but even archeology and many other areas, they are trying to set new agendas to corrupt the minds of people to make things biased,” she said.

DMK leader and spokesperson TKS Elangovan said the deletions were an attempt to “project RSS as a good organisation and that it was not involved in Gandhi’s murder which is highly condemnable”.

Malwinder Singh Kang, chief spokesperson of the AAP’s Punjab unit, said the move to prune content from NCERT books was aimed at misguiding future generations. “It seems this government wants to portray Nathuram Godse as the father of the nation, not Mahatma Gandhi,” Kang said.

With ENS inputs