Hyderabad: The All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi warned on Wednesday that removing any references to the 2002 Gujarat riots from NCERT textbooks will ‘make our kids intellectually poorer and susceptible to hate.’
Owaisi stated that teaching the youth about the Gujarat riots would have caused them to ‘learn from their elders’ mistakes.’
“Truth is that Godse belonged to Sangh & was a close “friend” of Savarkar. RSS was banned & Savarkar was implicated in Gandhi’s murder. The day isn’t far when books will justify Godse & say “we should hear both sides”,” he tweeted.
“Who knows, “Why I Killed Gandhi” may even become a lesson in moral science Teaching youth about Gujarat 2002 pogrom was important so that they learn from the mistakes of their elders. Removing it from syllabus will make our kids intellectually poorer & susceptible to hate,” he said in a following tweet.
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has removed paragraphs from Class 12 Political Science textbooks that contained information about the ban briefly imposed on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by the then government after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
Along with this, paragraphs which stated that Gandhi’s quest for Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists have also been removed from the curriculum.
Significantly, NCERT had made several changes in the textbooks of Class 6 to Class 12 last year. Among these, chapters titled ‘Rise of Popular Movements’ and ‘Era of One Party Dominance’ were removed from Class 12 textbook, ‘Politics in India since Independence’.
Similarly, chapters on ‘Democracy and Diversity’, ‘Popular Struggles and Movements’, and ‘Challenges to Democracy’ were removed from Class 10 textbook ‘Democratic Politics-II’.
Significantly, in the last 15 years, Nathuram Godse was referred to in the History book of Class 12 as a ‘Brahmin from Pune’ who assassinated Gandhi, which has been removed now.
As per NCERT, they had been receiving complaints of Godse’s caste mentioned in the books from CBSE and several state education boards since long, stating that one’s caste should not be unnecessarily mentioned in school textbooks.
Speaking on the matter in Parliament, Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi stated that the syllabus of books was rationalised in view of the loss of education in the pandemic and it was done to reduce the stress faced by students.
NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said that the load of textbooks was reduced as the students had suffered a lot in the pandemic and it was an attempt to help the stressed students and as a responsibility towards society and the nation.
Along with this, the NCERT has categorically rejected allegations that the changes have been made to suit a particular ideology.
New NCERT books have arrived for the new session this year. Last year, many chapters and facts were removed from the books of various subjects in NCERT. With these changes made by NCERT, now these new books are being made available for the students.
