Updating NCERT syllabus is undemocratic, autocratic, smacks of toxic communalism

Statement issued by Prof Tarun Kanti Naskar, General secretary, All India Save Education Committee, condemning NCERT's recent updating of the school curriculum:

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The so called 'updated' curriculum of NCERT has deleted many important chapters from Classes 10th, 11th and 12th text books of History, Civics, Political Science and Hindi. The chapters and lessons deleted indicates a communally motivated political act rather than an academic exercise. AISEC vehemently condemns this step and demands restoration of the deleted chapters forthwith.
During the COVID- 19 induced lockdown also, the NCERT, at the dictate of the BJP-led Central government removed many a chapter from History, Civics and Science text books on the plea of 'rationalisation' of syllabus. Now, in the name of updating the curriculum, the axe has fallen on the entire Mughal Period in the History text books.
Similarly, chapters such as 'Rise of Popular Movements' and 'Era of One Party Dominance' have been removed from the Class 12th 'Politics in India since Independence' textbook. In addition to all these, chapters like 'US hegemony in world politics' and 'The Cold War Era' have been removed from the Civics syllabus also.
The whole exercise of updating the curriculum is not only blatantly undemocratic and highly autocratic marred, but smacks of a toxic communal outlook. While implementing the disastrous NEP-2020 in an unprecedented haste, the Modi government is unable to digest whatever secular, scientific and democratic content is still left in the curriculum. As the government is adopting out and out anti-people policies in all spheres on one hand and trying to silence and suppress discontent brewing among people on the other, it does not want uncomfortable lessons like 'Democracy and Diversity', 'Popular Struggles and Movements', and 'Challenges to Democracy' to remain in the syllabus. So these chapters have been dropped from the Class 10 'Democratic Politics-II' textbook.
Through such curriculum changes, the rulers want to indoctrinate the young minds with communal-oriented thinking and plant seeds of disunity among the people so that no united, democratic movement can be developed against their unjust rule. This is a fascistic design and it must be opposed and resisted tooth and nail by all democratic and secular forces of our country.

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