Bengaluru: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Wednesday termed as "wrong" the recommendation of an NCERT-constituted panel recommending replacing "India" with "Bharat" in the school textbooks, and alleged an NDA hand was behind the move.
A high-level committee for social sciences, constituted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to revise the school curriculum, has recommended that "India" should be replaced with "Bharat" in the school textbooks for all classes.
According to committee chairperson C I Isaac, the panel has suggested replacing the name "India" with "Bharat" in the textbooks, introducing "classical history", instead of "ancient history", in the curriculum and including the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) in the syllabus for all subjects. Reacting sharply to it, Shivakumar wondered why there is the Reserve Bank of India, Indian Administrative Services and Indian Foreign Services, hinting that the word "Bharat" was not used. "Why the Republic of India is written on Indian passport," he asked.
"I think something wrong has happened to this government. I don't know why they are confusing the young minds of Indians," the Karnataka state Congress president said. "Who is saying that we are not Bharatiyas, but we are proud Indians. I think whatever stand they have taken is anti-people, anti-India and anti-Bharat," Shivakumar said.
He alleged that the NDA government forced the NCERT to take the "decision", adding, the move was "completely wrong", and appealed to the Centre not to accept the recommendation. "You can't change the history of India. Though you try to change Congress' history, you can't do it. The Congress' history is the country's history. So the Congress party has given the country a great history. We have got independence to India. We call it Indian independence. We don't call it Bharat independence," he said. Shivakumar said, "In Karnataka, we will continue with whatever earlier was there. We will discuss in the Cabinet. We will not change anything."
