India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI—National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has clamped down on school textbooks and erased chapters on the Mughal empire from class 12 history textbooks.
Uttar Pradesh has become the first state to announce the adoption of NCERT’s new class 12 history textbooks in which portions about Mughal courts have been removed from this academic session.
As part of its “syllabus rationalisation”, the NCERT, citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” as reasons, dropped certain portions from the syllabus including lessons on Mughal courts from its class 12 textbooks.
The erased chapters are related to ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. 16th and 17th centuries)’ from the book ‘Themes of Indian History-Part II’.
Chapters like Central Islamic Lands, Confrontation of Cultures, and The Industrial Revolution have been removed from the Class 11 syllabus. Chapters like Rise of popular movements, and ‘Era of one-party dominance’ have been removed from class 12.
From the class 10 Democratic Politics-II textbooks, chapters like ‘Democracy and diversity’, ‘Popular struggles and movement’, and ‘Challenges to democracy’ have been removed.
NCERT has also removed some paragraphs from Class 12 Political Science Textbooks pertaining to a brief ban imposed on RSS by the then government after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Also, paragraphs on Gandhi’s quest for Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists also have been removed.
“It’s a lie. (Chapters on) The Mughals have not been dropped. There was a rationalization process last year due to COVID, there was pressure on students everywhere,” NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said.
NCERT chief further said that expert committees examined the books from standards 6-12. “They recommended that if this chapter is dropped, it won’t affect the knowledge of the children and an unnecessary burden can be removed…The debate is unnecessary. Those who don’t know can check the textbooks…,” Saklani said.
He said that even today students are studying the history of the Mughals in NCERT’s class 7th book. “Along with this, the history of Mughals is being taught in Empires in section-2 of the 11th class book. And in the class 12th book there were 2 chapters on the history of the Mughals, out of which theme nine was removed last year, while theme eight is still being taught to the students. This year no chapter has been removed from any book,” Saklani further said.
He said they are working as per NEP (National Education Policy) 2020. This is a transition phase. NEP 2020 speaks of reducing the content load. “We are implementing it. NCF (National Curriculum Framework) for school education is being formed, it will be finalized soon. Textbooks will be printed in 2024 as per NEP. We have not dropped anything right now,” the NCERT chief.
NCERT boss clarification notwithstanding, the decision to erase chapters about Mughals has sparked anger across the country.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the Centre is erasing the past by removing Mughal history from the NCERT syllabus while China is erasing our present. “On one side, the Modi government is erasing the Mughals from NCERT syllabus, while on the other side, China, with whom PM Modi was shaking hands at the G20 Indonesia meeting, is erasing our present,” Owaisi told a press conference.
Congress’s general secretary in charge for Jharkhand Avinash Pandey alleged that the decision to drop lessons on Mughal courts from the NCERT books is an attempt to change the nation’s history. Hitting out at Centre, Pandey said democracy is under threat in the country.
Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal has attacked the government and said that consistent with PM Modi’s India, modern Indian history should start from 2014. In a tweet, Sibal said, “NCERT textbooks: Effaced: 1) Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu Muslim unity 2) Banning of RSS 3) All references to Gujarat riots 4) Protests that turned into social movements in contemporary India.”
“Consistent with Modi ji’s Bharat modern Indian history should start from 2014…,” the former Union minister said. The BJP government came to power in 2014.
BJP leader Kapil Mishra lauded the move and alleged that ‘thieves’ were being referred to as the Mughal rulers, he said that the initiative will shine a light on the ‘truth’.
Retweeting a video on the revised textbooks, he wrote, “It is a great decision to remove the false history of Mughals from NCERT. Thieves, pickpockets, and two-penny road raiders were called the Mughal Sultanate and the Emperor of India. Akbar, Babar, Shahjahan, and Aurangzeb are not in the history books, they are in the dustbin.”
