NCERT Crackdown on Indian History, Politics: What’s Missing from The New Books?

The deleted sentences were not included in the list of rationalised content released by NCERT last year.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), in its updated books has dropped some critical sentences from the Class 12 Political Science book.

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has dropped some critical sentences from its Class 12 Political Science textbook.

The deleted sentences talk about:

• Hindu extremists' dislike for Mahatma Gandhi

• Their attempts to assassinate Gandhi

• Ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) after Gandhi’s assassination.

This comes almost a year after NCERT released the “list of rationalised content” for all subjects. The changes were announced through the website and was shared with the schools. However, the updated textbooks have hit the markets very recently.

A report published by The Indian Express highlights that the content dropped from the updated books was not mentioned in the “list of rationalised content” released by the NCERT.

What exactly are the deleted sentences?

Here are exact sentences that are missing from the updated NCERT Class 12 political science books:

• Under first chapter titled ‘Politics in India since Independence’, the council has deleted the following paragraph from under the subheading ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s sacrifice’: “He (Gandhi) was particularly disliked by those who wanted Hindus to take revenge or who wanted India to become a country for the Hindus, just as Pakistan was for Muslims. They accused Gandhiji of acting in the interests of the Muslims and Pakistan. Gandhiji thought that these people were misguided. He was convinced that any attempt to make India into a country only for the Hindus would destroy India. His steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate Gandhiji.”

• NCERT has also deleted the passage which talks about the government’s ban on the RSS after Gandhi's assassination. "Gandhiji’s death had an almost magical effect on the communal situation in the country. Partition-related anger and violence suddenly subsided. The Government of India cracked down on organisations that were spreading communal hatred. Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh were banned for some time. Communal politics began to lose its appeal," the passage reads, as quoted by The Indian Express.

Then what stays in the textbooks?

The content which remains under the subhead ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s sacrifice’ talks about Gandhi's visit to violence torn Kolkata on 15 august 1947, and his efforts to convince Hindus and Muslims to give up violence, the report added.

The paragraph describing Gandhi's assassination reads: “Finally, on 30 January 1948, one such extremist, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, walked up to Gandhiji during his evening prayer in Delhi and fired three bullets at him, killing him instantly.”

How does the History book describes Gandhi's assassination?

While describing Gandhi's assassination, the NCERT has dropped the 'Brahmin' reference to Godse from its Class 12 History textbook titled ‘Themes In Indian History Part III’, the report highlighted. It has also deleted the sentence which said Godse was “the editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper”.

Earlier, the passage describing Gandhi's assassination under the chapter “Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement” read, "At his daily prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January, Gandhiji was shot dead by a young man. The assassin who surrendered afterwards, was a Brahmin from Pune named Nathuram Godse, the the editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had denounced Gandhiji as ‘an appeaser of Muslims’.”

And now, the updated paragraph reads, "At his daily prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January, Gandhiji was shot dead by a young man. The assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was Nathuram Godse."

What did the NCERT say about the deleted paragraphs?

When asked about why the deleted sentences about Gandhi's assassination were not mentioned the official "list of rationalised content", NCERT director DS Saklani told The Indian Express that “there is nothing new this time. Rationalisation happened last year. We have not done anything new this time."

“It is possible some bits may have been left out of the table due to oversight but no new changes have been made this year. This all happened last year," said AP Behera, NCERT's head of Central Institute of Educational Technology, as quoted by The Indian Express.

What else?

NCERT has also deleted reference to the Gujarat riots from its Class 11 Sociology textbook titled ‘Understanding Society’, the report added.

"Where and how people will live in cities is a question that is also filtered through socio-cultural identities. Residential areas in cities all over the world are almost always segregated by class, and often also by race, ethnicity, religion and other such variables. Tensions between such identities both cause these segregation patterns and are also a consequence. For example, in India, communal tensions between religious communities, most commonly Hindus and Muslims, results in the conversion of mixed neighbourhoods into single-community ones. This in turn gives a specific spatial pattern to communal violence whenever it erupts, which again furthers the ‘ghettoisation’ process. This has happened in many cities in India, most recently in Gujarat following the riots of 2002," the deleted paragraph reads.

(With inputs from The Indian Express.)