There is a bright young nine-year-old boy Karam who has recently come to live in my house. Every morning his mother takes him to the bus stop for the school bus. The first day he went reluctantly. While he waited he met a classmate, Mohammad. They were happy to see each other and to board the bus together.
Karam and Mohammad, Mohammad and Karam. Early in the morning, a new friendship had begun.
The changes brought by NCERT in the textbooks of Class 6 to Class 12, will put a stop to such bonds, these textual changes will put a stop to such beautiful friendships.
Let us start with a few examples of these deletions aimed at the Muslim community. The title of the document is ‘rationalised content in textbooks’.
Some paragraphs have been deleted:
Those which challenged biases against Muslims.
Those which were about Mughal emperors.
Those pertaining to the caste system.
Those decrying religious biases.
Islam is the favourite delete-target. Therefore parts which challenged the large-scale misunderstandings regarding Muslims are gone. So also paragraphs on the spirit of Islam have been removed. One of the removed paragraphs stated ‘like Christianity Islam is a religion that emphasises equality before Allah.’
Introductory paragraphs in the Class 7 book on Mughal emperors Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb have been removed. History is thereby re-written with intent and purpose.
In the Class 6 text ‘Social and Political Life Part 1’ a paragraph has been deleted that stated the following.
‘There is a general misconception that Muslims are not interested in educating their girls so they don’t send their daughters to school. Recent research however has shown that the compelling reason is poverty, not orthodoxy. Due to poverty, they don’t send their girls to school or after a few years are compelled to withdraw them.’
NCERT has said that this step has been taken after the consultation with a group of experts, but the names of the experts are not known.
In the Class 12 history book there is a chapter named “Kings and Chronicles: the Mughal Courts” the entire chapter has also been dropped from the syllabus.
In the Class 6 textbook, there is a chapter on ‘Samrat Ashoka’. In an inset in this chapter there is a reference to former PM Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘His teachings talk in the language which we can still understand’. Even this innocuous piece has been removed.
References to social movements such as the Chipko movement, agitations by Bharatiya Kisan Union, Narmada Bachao Andolan, and Right to Information have been removed.
Besides deletion, there is also distortion and hyperbole.
The paragraph on the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has been twisted out of shape. Incidents of human rights violations, arrests of political leaders, censorship on media, forceful vasectomy, forced migration, deaths in custody and violence have been given huge space.
In the Class 12 political science textbook, there is a chapter ‘Recent Developments in Indian Politics’ where the reference to ‘Gujarat Riots’ has been dropped. One of the paragraphs removed stated the following:
“Instances, like in Gujarat, alert us to dangers involved in using religious sentiments for political purposes. This poses a threat to democratic politics.”
In the Class 6 textbook, there is a chapter called “diversity and discrimination” the paragraph on caste discrimination has been removed. The dropped paragraph stated that the ‘caste system prohibits untouchables to do any other work other than what has been prescribed in the rule book.’
The chapters titled “Central Islamic lands” and “The Industrial Revolution” in the Class 11 history textbook have been dropped.
In this exercise, the permission of the authors was not sought.
The reason cited by the NCERT for changes is due to the coronavirus pandemic, the National Education Policy 2020, overlapping with similar text, and irrelevant content and difficulty level.
The textbooks are being changed according to a particular ideology. The new syllabus will not fulfil the dream of our forefathers who dreamt of a liberal, secular and inclusive India.
There is one obvious question being raised all over the country which demands a reply. NCERT, working on the direction of the current regime, what will it do to the young pliable minds of children like our own Karam and Mohammad??
(The views expressed by the author are personal and do not reflect the views of the organisation.)
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