Schools in Kerala are likely to teach the portions that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had deleted from its Class XI and XII textbooks, including those pertaining to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the ban on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The committee, which met on Tuesday, April 25, has entrusted General Education Minister V Sivankutty with the responsibility of taking a final decision on the matter after consulting with the government and Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan.
Final decision yet to be taken
As per PTI, Sivankutty told reporters that the SCERT and the Curriculum Committee take decisions on the academic affairs of the general education department of the state. As per an MoU entered with the NCERT, Kerala has been using its 44 textbooks, and there has been a significant change in the content of subjects including history, political science, economics, and sociology at the higher-secondary level.
"The curriculum committee unanimously decided to include all those portions omitted from these textbooks in the syllabus and teach the students in the state. I have been entrusted to inform the government and the CM about the decision and take a necessary decision in this regard," the minister said.
Sivankutty said that a final decision would be taken after consulting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. A SCERT source told PTI that if a final nod was received from the government, they would bring out supplementary textbooks comprising those deleted portions for Classes XI and XII, and it would be taught in state schools.
It has been decided to inform the Centre about this development and to petition Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Education Ministry about the omission of the portions from the NCERT textbooks.
About NCERT deletions
The NCERT had recently dropped certain portions on Mahatma Gandhi and how his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity "provoked Hindu extremists" from its Class XII History textbook. It also left out the portion where the government placed a ban on the RSS after Gandhi's assassination.
The deletions had received backlash from several experts.
"Gandhiji was assassinated but in their textbook, it was mentioned that Gandhi had died like (they are saying) he died of a heart attack," said Minister V Sivankutty.
The minister said several important portions, including the assassination of Gandhiji, the ban on RSS, Mughal history, the industrial revolution, and the history of post-independent India, including five-year plans, have been excluded from the NCERT textbooks.
Chief Minister Vijayan had also strongly condemned the dropping of certain chapters and portions from NCERT Class XII textbooks and alleged that "complete saffronisation" of academic books was the objective behind the move.
Portions referring to the Gujarat riots were also dropped from Class XI Sociology textbook, months after NCERT removed the reference to the 2002 communal violence in two Class XII textbooks.
The Congress has accused the Centre of "whitewashing" and "distorting" history.
NCERT Chief Dinesh Saklani said the syllabus was "rationalised" in June last year itself and there has been no trimming of the curriculum this year.
