New Delhi: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has dropped references to the Gujarat Riots from Class XII textbooks as part of a ‘rationalisation’ process. Other references that have been omitted from textbooks include the Naxalite movement and a few Dalit writers.
The curriculum has been rationalised with the aim of ‘reducing the content load,’ in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of subject experts had been working on the rationalisation process since last December and the process has now been completed. A senior official told Hindustan Times that no chapters had been omitted selectively.
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What has been removed/changed?
- References to the Gujarat riots, Cold War, and the Mughal courts have been struck down from Class XII textbooks
- The Industrial Revolution has been left out from the Class XI textbooks and references to a few Dalit writers have been dropped from Class VII textbooks.
- One of the paragraphs that has been removed reads, “Gujarat riots show that the government machinery also becomes susceptible to sectarian passions. Instances, like in Gujarat, alert us to dangers involved in using religious sentiments for political purposes. This poses a threat to democratic politics.”
- Page 105 of the same book on the history of the ‘Naxalite Movement’ has been dropped from the syllabus too.
- Pages 113-117 on ‘Controversies during the Emergency’ has been dropped too.
