Changes made in books to reduce the burden on students: NCERT

Certain topics detailing the circumstances around Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination were among those removed from Class 12 textbooks last year as part of syllabus cuts meant to lower the burden on students wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) said on Wednesday.

The clarification came in response to a report in the Indian Express that highlighted the deletion of topics that mentioned Mahatma Gandhi’s views on Hindu-Muslim unity antagonised extremist Hindu organisations and that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was banned for some time.

NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said the changes were made and incorporated last year on the recommendations of subject experts and not for any political considerations, but he admitted that the details of the excluded portions may have, by oversight, not been mentioned in a list of rationalised topics released last June.

“NCERT doesn’t take decisions on its own. These topics were rationalised last year on recommendations of the subject expert panel. One should not see that through the political prism. In this case, only a few lines have been removed. The important and relevant facts about Mahatma Gandhi are still there in the textbook. It is very much there that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse,” Saklani said.

“The idea behind rationalising the syllabus was to reduce students’ burden amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Any extra line or paraphrase would have invited extra questions in the exam,” he added.

Saklani’s remarks came as Congress leader Jairam Ramesh accused the government of distorting history and “whitewashing with a vengeance” through the removal of certain content from NCERT textbooks.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hit out at the BJP and the RSS over the issue, saying no matter how much they try, they cannot erase history.