Defending the deletion of certain content from NCERT history textbooks, the BJP on Wednesday said there was no need of ‘negative content’ as India was marching head to be the greatest country in the world. The Congress had earlier accused the ruling party of “whitewashing with vengeance” over the removal of texts pertaining to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the ban on RSS, and termed it an act of distorting history.
The NCERT however sought to play down the deletions, saying these were done last year itself as part of a rationalization exercise and would continue this year too. NCERT chief Dinesh Saklani also clarified that it could have been an "oversight" that some deletions were not announced in its rationalisation exercise last year.
"Gandhiji's death had a magical effect on communal situation in the country", "Gandhi's pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists" and "Organisations like RSS were banned for some time" are among the texts missing from the class 12 political science textbook for the new academic session.
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.
However, the rationalisation note had no mention of the excerpts about Mahatma Gandhi.
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Saklani said the issue should not be "blown out of proportion" and all changes in the new textbooks will be notified in a day or two.
"Subject expert panel had recommended dropping certain texts on Gandhi. It was accepted last year only. It was not mentioned in the list of rationalised content may be due to oversight. It should not be blown out of proportion," Saklani told PTI.
"Nothing can be omitted overnight, there are proper procedures and professional ethics have to be followed. There is nothing intentional behind it," he added.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the BJP and RSS over the issue, saying no matter how much they try, they cannot erase history. "You can (make) changes in textbooks but you cannot change the history of the country. This is an attempt by the BJP-RSS, they can try as much as they want, but they cannot erase history," he said.
Tagging a media report on the matter, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh termed it: "Whitewashing with a vengeance."
Tagging another report which claimed that chapters related to the Mughals and Dalit writers were also removed from the textbooks, he said, "This reveals the ruling regime's TRUE mindset. After all, the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr Ambedkar as well."
Congress leader Manish Tewari said re-writing history has been an "ongoing endeavour" with the RSS and BJP.
"This is not the first time that this has happened. I recall that in the first and second NDA governments in 1998-99, this particular project was being unveiled. The only thing I would like to say is that you can distort history but you cannot erase it," he said.
Truth has a way of manifesting itself. History bears testimony to the fact that those who have tried to re-write history have been consigned to the "dustbin of history", Tewari said.
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate also attacked the BJP over the issue, alleging that they want to erase the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi by writing a "new history".
Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje defended the decision, saying Congress was the "biggest manipulator" of India's historical facts and the BJP was only correcting the wrongdoings of the past.
"Facts that threatened @INCIndia and never made it to textbooks were Barbarism of Mughals, Era of Emergency, Genocide of Kashmir Pandits and Sikhs, Corruption of Congress. BJP is only correcting your wrongdoings," she said.
BJP's Maharashtra chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said some people had deliberately written "negative content" in history textbooks and there was a need to drop it.
He also said that although he was against some "negative descriptions" in textbooks, facts need not be removed from them.
“Some people have deliberately written negative content in our history books. It needs to be removed. "Our country is marching ahead, progressing and going to be the greatest country in the world. There is no need for negative content," he said.
After the press conference, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was asked about his remarks on the issue, he said he was making a general statement over it and not referring to any specific issue.
A portion referring to Gujarat riots has been dropped from class 11 Sociology textbook by NCERT, months after it removed the reference to the 2002 communal violence in two class 12 textbooks.
The purged paragraph from the class 11 textbook was not announced in the curriculum rationalisation booklet notified by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) last year.
Also read: Enabling Education-2: Here is why lifelong learning becomes imperative in a changing world
(Edited by : Pradeep John)
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