Hyderabad: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor slammed the Union government for removing portions that refer to India's first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the revised National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) class XI political science textbook. He termed it as "What a disgrace".
The act of removal of references to the freedom fighter Azad from the new class XI political science textbook have generated a huge backlash from all quarters and left the Twitter users worried on what will be on the agenda of NCERT's removal list and what ramifications would it have on the history which is left for the posterity.
The Trivandrum MP who held the portfolio of union minister of state for human resource development said, "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," in a Tweet.
The future generations will not learn about nation’s first education minister. What they will definitely learn is the shameful bigotry of the current dispensation. This is not the inclusive religion of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam that PM keeps talking about, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha MP and Deputy Leader-Shiv Sena UBT, tweeted.
He was a freedom fighter and India’s first Education Minister, but any mention of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has been deleted from a revised political science textbook by the BJP government. This is the erasure of Muslim history from textbooks! Indian American Muslim Council said in a tweet.
Historian S Irfan Habib tweeted the link of the media report and wrote: "It is petty and shameful that NCERT deleted Maulana Azad's name from the list of senior leaders who chaired the major committees of the Constituent assembly. It is an insult for someone who stood for united India till the end"
According to NCERT, the "syllabus rationalisation" exercise was undertaken last year wherein "overlapping" and "irrelevant" portions were dropped from the course. The deletions include Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, and Naxalite movement, among others. However, the rationalisation note did not have any mention of any changes/trims in class XI political science textbook.
The NCERT maintained that no curriculum trimming took place now and the syllabus rationalisation in June last year and downplayed the changes not reflecting in rationalisation note as an 'oversight'. In the controversial version of the textbook, first chapter titled 'Constitution - Why and How', a line has been revised to omit Azad's name from the constituent assembly committee meetings. The revised line now reads, "Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or BR Ambedkar chaired these Committees."
