NCERT textbook no longer found Godse's identity as Brahmin, RSS ban after Gandhi’s killing

New Delhi: Amid criticism that attempts are being made to rewrite Indian History under the BJP government at the Centre in tune with the Sangh Parivar's narrative, reports suggest that details of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the subsequent ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been removed from NCERT's Class 12 Political Science textbooks.

This removal also includes the reference to Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Gandhi, as "a Brahmin from Pune" and "the editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had denounced Gandhiji as 'an appeaser of Muslims',” from a Class 12 History textbook.

Along with this, paragraphs which stated that Gandhi's quest for Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists have also been removed from the curriculum.

The reprinted textbooks this year have introduced some significant changes, which were not mentioned in NCERT's "list of rationalized content" released in June 2022. One such change is the removal of the third and final reference to the Gujarat riots from the Class 11 Sociology textbook titled 'Understanding Society'.

NCERT has eliminated a paragraph that explains how segregation of residential areas occurs due to factors such as class, religion, and ethnicity. The paragraph further cites the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002 as an example of how such violence reinforces ghettoization.

Significantly, NCERT had made several changes in the textbooks of Class 6 to Class 12 last year. Among these, chapters titled 'Rise of Popular Movements' and 'Era of One Party Dominance' were removed from the Class 12 textbook, 'Politics in India since Independence'.

Similarly, chapters on 'Democracy and Diversity', 'Popular Struggles and Movements', and 'Challenges to Democracy' were removed from the Class 10 textbook 'Democratic Politics-II'.

Significantly, in the last 15 years, Nathuram Godse was referred to in the History book of Class 12 as a 'Brahmin from Pune' who assassinated Gandhi, which has been removed now.

As per NCERT, they had been receiving complaints of Godse's caste mentioned in the books from CBSE and several state education boards for a long, stating that one's caste should not be unnecessarily mentioned in school textbooks.

Speaking on the matter in Parliament, Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi stated that the syllabus of books was rationalised in view of the loss of education in the pandemic and it was done to reduce the stress faced by students.

NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said that a load of textbooks was reduced as the students had suffered a lot in the pandemic and it was an attempt to help the stressed students and as a responsibility towards society and the nation.

Along with this, the NCERT has categorically rejected allegations that the changes have been made to suit a particular ideology.

New NCERT books have arrived for the new session this year. Last year, many chapters and facts were removed from the books of various subjects in NCERT. With these changes made by NCERT, now these new books are being made available for the students.