A Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Binoy Viswam, has written to the Modi government expressing concern about the “deletion of Mughals” from National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks.
In his letter, Viswam wrote that ‘drastic changes are being made to NCERT textbooks’ and it reeks of an attempt to ‘omit information about certain periods of Indian history. He accused the government of “trying to curtail critical analysis of our society, polity and history.” He added, “Removal and reduction of content pertaining to the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and the works of literature and architecture of that period prima facie appears to be communally biased. References to social movements are also omitted to a great extent”.
The Communist leader further urged the Union government to ‘rectify’ the biases in the NCERT textbooks to “preserve the spirit of critical inquiry and scientific temper in future generations.”
CPI Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam has written to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over “drastic changes” made to NCERT textbooks as part of “rationalising” exercise and urged him to take necessary action pic.twitter.com/dsCbZO4FZW
— ANI (@ANI) April 6, 2023
It was fake news. chapters on Mughals have not been deleted
First of all the chapters on the Mughals haven’t been deleted. OpIndia did a story debunking the lies surrounding the NCERT coursebook controversy. Several media reports had widely speculated that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has amended its publications, notably the 12th-class History book, and removed certain chapters on the Mughal empire. After the rumour gained traction, the director of NCERT Dinesh Prasad Saklani addressed the issue and refuted the claims that were being spread by various news outlets.
The NCERT director told ANI that the chapters on the Mughals had not been removed. He stated that only the overlapping chapters had been dropped, alleviating the additional strain on children’s shoulders.
“It’s a lie, (Chapters on) the Mughals have not been dropped. There was a rationalisation process last year because due to COVID, there was pressure on students everywhere”, he said.
Calling the debate unnecessary, the NCERT director said the expert committee recommended that if the chapter was dropped, it will not affect the knowledge of the children and an unnecessary burden can be removed. “The debate is unnecessary. Those who don’t know can check the textbooks…”, Saklani added.
#WATCH | Dinesh Prasad Saklani, Director of NCERT says, “It’s a lie. (Chapters on) Mughals have not been dropped. There was a rationalisation process last year because due to COVID, there was pressure on students everywhere…Expert committees examined the books from std 6-12.… pic.twitter.com/647wdsPSSR
— ANI (@ANI) April 4, 2023
CPM govt had ordered the omission of atrocities by Muslim rulers on Hindus in West Bengal when in power
Ironically, it was the CPM government in West Bengal, which had ordered that there should be no mention of Muslim atrocities in textbooks during their tenure. In 1989, the WB government issued a circular and recommended the deletion of discussions about the medieval period because it was “too controversial.”
The circular explicitly read “Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned.”
in the Contemporary World: Critical Social
and Political Issues, Lexington Books, Mary-
land, US, 2004, p. 273
Author Santosh C Saha in his book ‘Fundamentalism in the Contemporary World: Critical Social and Political Issues’.mentions how the communist government in West Bengal had, in 1989, brought a circular bt the Board of Secondary Education (dated April 28, 1989) that any mentions of atrocities by Muslim rulers in Medieval India (of which Bengal was one of the worst affected states) should be omitted from state syllabus.
The current CPM leaders seem to have conveniently forgotten their own ‘history’.
Such measures to delete or whitewash the atrocities perpetrated by Muslim rulers upon Hindus ensure that the typical Hindu youngster grows up thinking that everything in India was completely messed up before the Mughal and British arrived and that the latter, especially the Muslim rulers did nothing particularly bad that hadn’t previously occurred in India earlier.
In fact, historical accounts written by Muslims themselves document in detail how Hindus were slaughtered and forced to accept Islam by various Muslim rulers, many of whom are supposed to be moderate rulers. The religious conversions from Hinduism to Islam are argued to be voluntary and triggered because Hinduism is an unjust religion.
Not only such chapters from history have been whitewashed, but they have also been glorified, too. Medieval history is virtually only Mughal history, the way the school curriculum is designed, and it appears as if every great thing about India happened in that period only.
While the Mughals are often wrongly credited with promoting arts, architecture, and literature, as well as fostering religious tolerance to some extent, there are documented accounts of atrocities and violence committed by Mughal rulers against Hindus. These atrocities included forced conversion to Islam, destruction of Hindu temples, imposition of discriminatory taxes, and violence against non-Muslims, among others.
