Curricula changes

As schoolchildren start the academic year 2023-24, a controversy has erupted over some politically-flavoured and glaring gaps found in the new history and political science books prescribed by the NCERT for senior and senior secondary classes. The changes effected in the textbooks smack of an attempt to selectively rewrite or distort history. Standing out starkly in this is the deletion of chapters related to

Mahatma Gandhi's push for Hindu-Muslim unity in 1947 in the tumultuous months before and after the Partition of India. Gandhi's efforts were allegedly linked to his assassination and the subsequent ban imposed on the RSS for a short while. The erasure of this portion of the study material is outrageous as it denies students the opportunity to study the history of that period in a holistic manner, warts and all. A critical thought process and broad outlook about the goings-on of the time can be nurtured only if the pupils are allowed to engage fully with our social and political past. Similarly controversial alterations in text books are the removal of some key aspects of the Mughal period and the whitewashing of the Gujarat riots.

Lending weight to the brouhaha over the contentious amendments is the surreptitious manner in which they were made. These alterations, unlike some others, did not figure in the list of proposed changes that was published last June. The NCERT Director dismissing the lapse as 'oversight' does not stick as all these revisions have the BJP-RSS ideology smeared all over them.

Occasional changes in the syllabi and textbooks of schoolchildren are needed to update the content taught to the students. As the NCERT books are endorsed by the CBSE and many state school boards — the UP board has already announced their inclusion from the current session — the culling out of crucial chapters from the history books is bound to affect the attitude and viewpoint of millions of impressionable young minds. For this reason, it is imperative that great care and caution be used to design an objective curriculum for them.