India’s First Education Minister Maulana Azad Omitted From NCERT Textbook; A Disgrace, Says Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday slammed the BJP-led government over NCERT dropping references to India’s first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the new Class XI political science textbook.

While Maulana Azad figured among prominent individuals, who chaired important constituent assembly committee meetings, the revised version states that these were usually chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad or Sardar Patel.

“What a disgrace. I have no objection to adding neglected figures to the historical narrative, but deleting people, especially for the wrong reasons, is unworthy of our diverse democracy and its storied history,” the former minister tweeted.

Besides, a reference to Jammu and Kashmir’s conditional accession has also been deleted from the textbook, The Hindu reported.

In the revised edition’s 10th chapter, titled ‘The Philosophy of the Constitution’, a paragraph explaining that Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India was based on a pledge to uphold its autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution has been removed, it added.

As part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise last year, the NCERT, citing “overlapping” and “irrelevant” as reasons, dropped certain portions from the course including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, among others from its textbooks.

The rationalisation note, however, did not mention any changes in Class XI political science textbook.

“Certain changes not finding mention of in the rationalised content book could be an ‘oversight’,” NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani had reiterated.

Notably, the Ministry of Minority Affairs discontinued the Maulana Azad Fellowship, which provided financial assistance for five years to students from six notified minorities, last year.