The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) dropped references to the ‘Gujarat genocide’ from class 12 textbooks as part of a what it termed ‘rationalisation’ process.
It also dropped a poem on The Dalit Movement from the Class 12 text book on Social Change and Developments in India, and Naxalite movement.
In the “list of rationalised content”, NCERT has dropped the section on ‘Gujarat genocide’ in the chapter titled “Recent developments in Indian politics”.
It also dropped a full page of content on the “controversies regarding emergency” in the chapter “The crisis of democratic order”.
Other sections dropped from the political science textbook include a full chapter on “the rise of popular movements” and a full page on “the era of one party dominance”.
In the history textbook, NCERT has dropped a full chapter on “understanding partition (politics, memories and experiences)”.
A chapter on the Mughal courts was also dropped from the history textbooks.
A poem on the Dalit Movement in the “Social Change and Developments in India” textbook has also been dropped.
On dropping the content from textbooks, NCERT said: “In view of the COVID pandemic, it is imperative to reduce content load on students. The National Education Policy 2020 , also emphasises reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with creative mindset. In this background, the NCERT has undertaken the exercise to rationalise the textbooks across all classes. Learning Outcomes already developed by the NCERT across classes have been taken into consideration in this exercise.”
NCERT said that the ‘rationalisation’ is done on the basis of “overlapping with similar content”, “difficulty level”, “similar content in lower classes”, “content that is easily accessible to students” and “content that is irrelevant to the present context”.
Pertinently, on 28 February 2002, Hindu mobs who were part of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), unleashed massive violence against Muslims in Gujarat that went on for weeks killing thousands of Muslims.
About 3,000 Muslims were killed. Some 20,000 Muslim homes and businesses and 360 places of worship were destroyed, and roughly 150,000 people displaced.
The massacre was unleashed after the burning of 59 Karsevaks on board the Sabarmati Express in Godhra which was probed and declared an accident.
Modi, the current Prime Minister of India, was accused of initiating and condoning the violence, instructing police to stand by and let Hindu mobs do acts of violence against Muslims.
Strong evidence links the Modi administration in Gujarat to the carefully orchestrated anti-Muslim attacks.
Hindu mobs had detailed lists of Muslim residents and businesses, and violence occurred within view of police stations.
An independent media, Tehelka, used hidden cameras to capture some of the accused speaking openly of how the attacks had Modi’s blessings.
