Controversy over revisions in the NCERT textbooks... (एनसीईआरटी पाठ्यपुस्तकों में हुए संशोधनों पर विवाद...)

Selective deletions of significant passages in textbooks on Indian history in the name of rationalizing school curricula stoked fears of the politicization of education.

# Arguments in favor of the topic :-

• There is no need to resort to the excuse of Covid-19. The deletions relating to the Mughals, the RSS, and the Gujarat riots are justified in themselves. Schoolchildren mustn’t be burdened with complexities.

• Philosophers of history have always understood ‘History-Writing’ to be a dynamic process. R.G. Collingwood, for instance, wrote these words in The Idea of History: “Each age writes its own history”; and “Each age must reinterpret the past in the light of its own preoccupations”.
  
  
  

• Since the 1960s, textbooks in India have been written by Leftist historians like Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma, Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra, Bipin Chandra, and so on. Most of them were cardholders of one Communist Party or another.
  
  
  

• Let us remember that this is not the first time a charge like this has been laid. We witnessed this in 1977-80 and 1998-2005 too.  

• The editing out of references to the RSS in the context of the Gandhi assassination :
  
  
  

• The fact is that the RSS was never made a party along with Nathuram Godse and others in the court case. 
  
  
  

• Inquiry commissions and various reports by the investigative agencies of central and state governments, all headed by Congress, confirm that the RSS had nothing to do with the murder. 

• The correspondence between Nehru and Patel on the issue also confirms that the RSS was not involved and the ban was lifted at the suggestion of Nehru.

• Since that is the fact of the matter, why perpetuate the lie through textbooks, and why to accuse and malign someone innocent/not guilty?

• Removal of the chapter on the Mughal court :
  
  
  
  

• The issue is: why provide so much space to the Mughals—all three chapters—at the expense of contemporary ruling dynasties in southern, western, and eastern India?

• The Mughals were never the paramount rulers of India. Many dynasties, contemporary to the Mughals, ruled various parts of India.

• Also, before Akbar (1556-1605) and after Aurangzeb (1658-1707), the Mughals were nothing more than regional or small territory rulers.
  
  
  

• For just 151 years of dominance, historians have given far more space than can be justified.

• And why only the Mughal court, and not the courts of the Cholas, Pandyas, Marathas, Yadavas, Kakatiyas, the Vijayanagar Empire and so many more?

• Negationism in the Past Textbooks :

• Past textbooks resorted to negationism on a large scale.

• Atrocities on non-Muslims, destruction of Hindu temples, jizya, etc. by Muslim rulers are either completely ignored or, at best, mentioned in passing.
  
  
  

• The famous West Bengal circular on history-writing—“shuddho-ashuddho”—gave clear instructions that atrocities on Hindus and destruction of temples by Muslims were not to be written about.

• Similarly, when it comes to ancient India, the idea was to present it in as bad a light as possible; never mention the sciences, mathematics, astrophysics, political and legal ideas, or democratic institutions that arose in that epoch.

• Hindu-Muslim riots were mentioned selectively :
  
  
  
  
  
  

• The Gujarat riots of 2002 are an example.
  
  
  

• Why not mention that the first reported riot in Ahmedabad occurred in 1713 over the celebration of Holi?

• Why not talk about the Ahmedabad riots of 1967-70 and 1985, which killed thousands of people and often lasted six months and more?

 

# Arguments against the topic :-

• On writing about the past, Winston S. Churchill once wryly remarked, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” What the former British premier said in jest is reflected now in the ruling BJP’s decisions.
  
  
  

• The recent deletions from the NCERT textbooks have more to do with Hindu communal politics than with, as claimed by NCERT director Prof. Dinesh Prasad Saklani, reducing the load on students returning post-Covid by removing some “ faltu” chapters and sections.
  
  
  

• Replacing history with a version more suitable to its ideology has been the agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

• Distorting history: After Independence, shortly after the ban imposed on the RSS in the wake of Gandhiji’s murder was lifted, the organization, through their schools (the Saraswati Shishu Mandirs) and 'shakhas' (morning assemblies), started focusing on spreading a virulent history that demonized the Muslims as ‘foreigners’ and ‘marauders’ and tried to underplay or distort the actual freedom struggle.

• Inventing history: Apart from distorting and inventing history, faith, and mythology also began taking their place. This has now led to top leaders of the RSS and BJP laying claims to such knowledge gems as the exact birthplaces of god-like heroes from our epics such as Rama and Krishna, or pointing to the elephant-trunked Ganesha as proof of plastic surgery being practiced in ancient India.

• Imposing history: Once they came close to state power, they tried to bring this kind of history into the national curriculum.

• In 1977, as a constituent of the Janata Party, they tried to ban the books the NCERT had got our most respected historians to write for schoolchildren (such as Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma, Bipin Chandra, and Satish Chandra). 
  
  
  

• During their next stint (1999-2004) when the BJP led the central government, they first attempted to remove critical sections from these books saying they hurt religious feelings. Eventually, they had these books replaced with substandard ones with a heavy Hindu communal bias.
  
  
  

• Violating the principles of history, its scientific procedures, and ‘discourse of proof’, the majoritarian political forces in power in India today have resorted to total falsification of facts or the substituting of them with faith, beliefs, and mythology.

• The Hindu communalists accepted the James Mill-inspired colonial understanding of Indian history which divided it from the ancient past onwards into religious lines; ‘Hindu rule’ followed by the ‘oppressive Muslim rule’ and then ‘British rule’ arrives as the ‘saviors’.
  
  
  
  
  

• It is important to note that the attempt at erasing a long and critical period of Indian history associated with Islam is occurring in an ecosystem where Muslims are demonized, Muslim-sounding names of roads, railway stations, cities, etc. are being changed and the community terrorized into moving into ghettoes.
  
  
  

• Globally, studies have shown that these are often impending signs of genocide.

• And we know that open calls for the genocide of Muslims are now being made with impunity in India.

• This should be of concern to every citizen who believes in a democratic India based on the Constitution.
  
  
  

• Again, the deletions include all references to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, being assassinated because his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity was resented by Hindu extremists.
  
  
  

• This also occurs in an ecosystem where the assassin Nathuram Godse is called desh bhakt by BJP parliamentarians and the Congress, Nehru, and Gandhi are held responsible for Partition!

• The Indian History Congress (IHC), the most prestigious body of Indian historians, has strongly critiqued these moves.

• A large number of historians from all over the country have demanded immediate withdrawal of the changes, saying they are guided by divisive motives.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• There has been no attempt to consult even the members of the teams that had prepared the textbooks.

• Several state governments (Kerala, Rajasthan, and West Bengal) have also registered their protest. 
  
  
  
• And articles and editorials were critical of the NCERT moves that have come out not just in the Indian media but in prestigious publications across the world.

  

  
  

•  It is time the discipline of history is left to the historians and not dictated by narrow-minded politicians with a worm’s eye view of the world and human history. 

• Indeed, textbook writing should be the preserve of bodies consisting of experts and eminent citizens, free of political influence and interference.

 

# Conclusion :-

• History helps us relate the present to the past in intelligible ways. Our systems of government, political ideas, religious beliefs, art, architecture, cultural practices, educational systems, customs, and behavioral patterns are all products of the past; recent or remote.

• “Individuals, communities, societies could scarcely exist if all knowledge of the past is wiped out,” wrote the British social historian Arthur Marwick. “A society without history...would be like an individual without memory.”
  
  
  

• History is a great unifying force provided it is written with responsibility and care. We must remember that over 70 percent of our students leave school by the time they reach the secondary level. They carry with them all their life what they study from Class 1st to 10th—that is, a very tender age.

•  In such a situation, we must always teach our children history that all or at least most historians agree with. All controversial issues should be reserved for higher studies. Historians should not burden schoolchildren with anything more than simple, uncontroversial, and undisputed history.

•  Accusing each other is neither going to help the image of the country nor enhance the unity among the people. We need to help our people learn to live with history, not be trapped in history.