NCERT: Rewriting History
The India Commentary view
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-06-22 14:29:55
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The India Commentary view
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NCERT has embarked
on a 'cleansing' and 'sensitizing' project, ostensibly to reduce the curriculum
to give relief to the students who have fallen behind in learning due to Covid
related disruptions for the last two years. It has removed paragraphs and
entire chapters from several social sciences books and has attempted to rewrite
or even obliterate history. That is not all. An attempt is also being made to
rewrite several chapters with a biased perspective. This is not going to lessen
the burden of students but keep them ignorant of several important events in
Indian history or provide them with a biased version of events.
For
instance, students will not learn about the Narmada Bachao Andolan or the Chipko
movement. Similarly, students henceforth will not be taught about the 2002
Gujarat riots or the Emergency. They will also be given only a brief account of
the Muslim rulers in India. The idea is to let future generations believe that
India was always a Hindu nation comprised of several Hindu kingdoms whose
rulers were powerful and benevolent. They will not be taught about the
Jaichands who helped Muslim rulers consolidate their rule in the country.
Neither will they know the excesses committed under the Emergency by a despotic
ruler bent on prolonging her rule, for the BJP can see itself doing the same,
subtly now and more openly in the near future.
Rewriting
history as per the myopic or agenda-based view of the ruling dispensation does
not change the history of a nation. In fact, today's rulers are not going to be
there forever and if any future government reinstates the removed paragraphs
and chapters, it will mean that students now in classes VI to XII will forever
be unaware of these important events in Indian history. In the name of 'rationalization' what NCERT is doing is not correct. It has claimed that it has consulted
outside 'experts' before taking up the exercise without disclosing their names.
Such opaqueness is not good, especially in educational matters.
