Outcry after Indian education body deletes portions on Gandhi, Gujarat riots from school textbooks

A government agency for education standards has reportedly deleted portions from the new standard 12 political science and history textbooks, including certain references to Mahatma Gandhi, sparking outcry among people who see it as an attempt to alter Indian history.

Paragraphs on the attempts to assassinate Gandhi, the ban imposed on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – as well as all references to the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat have been removed from the school textbooks, according to reports.

On Wednesday, The Indian Express reported that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) deleted these sections from the political science curriculum of grade 12 students.

The NCERT is an autonomous body that assists and advises the federal and state governments on school education.

The report said that the deleted sentences include: “He (Gandhi) was particularly disliked by those who wanted Hindus to take revenge or who wanted India to become a country for the Hindus, just as Pakistan was for Muslims…”

In the aftermath of India’s independence from British colonial rule, the country was divided into two separate states – India and Pakistan.

The partition of the country was followed by largescale religious violence as millions of people were displaced. Hindus in Pakistan moved to India and Muslims in India moved to the new Muslim majority state of Pakistan. The effects of the bloody partition remain for both nations.

The other sentences removed from the textbooks include references to Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity.

“His steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate Gandhij,” the report quoted one of the deleted sentences.

Following Gandhi’s assassination on 30 January 1948 by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who was affiliated to the RSS, the organisation was banned in the country for a short period.

The textbook reference to this event in history has also been deleted.

“Gandhiji’s death had an almost magical effect on the communal situation in the country… The Government of India cracked down on organisations that were spreading communal hatred. Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh were banned for some time,” the report quoted the deleted section as saying.

Godse’s reference as “a Brahmin from Pune” and “the editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had denounced Gandhi as ‘an appeaser of Muslims’” has also been removed from from a history textbook.

These deletions are part of the new books that have hit the market and did not figure in the “list of rationalised content” officially released by NCERT in June last year.

The body had then announced the removal of content on the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Mughal rule in India, and the nationwide Emergency imposed in 1975.

Other sections deleted from the textbooks that were not part of the rationalisation exercise to reduce load on students include the reference to Gujarat riots in grade 11 sociology textbook which spoke about segregation of residential areas on class and religious lines and how the violence furthered ghettoisation.

In June last year, two other references to the riots in the grade 12 political science and sociology textbooks were removed.

Also last year, the NCERT dropped passages dealing with the impact of the Emergency on people’s lives and institutions as well as several protest and social movements.

The NCERT has said that the rationalisation was done last year and “nothing new” was done this year.

NCERT director DS Saklani said to the outlet: “There is nothing new” this time. “Rationalisation happened last year. We have not done anything new this time.”

The move to remove these sections has generated criticism from opposition parties and other observers.

Former federal law minister Kapil Sibal tweeted: “Consistent with Modiji’s Bharat modern Indian history should start from 2014… !” Mr Sibal’s comment was a dig at prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP coming to power for the first time in 2014.

Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) said: “Communal rewriting of history intensifies. NCERT revises Class XII history book removing chapters on Mughal empire.

The lands of India have always been the churning crucible of civilisational advances through cultural confluences.”

Trinamool Congress lawmaker Jawhar Sircar wrote: “Why delete the chapter on Mughals in Class 12 History Books? They forget that India was the world’s richest economy, under the Mughals, with 20+% of global wealth. It were the British who left us at 4% !!”

The opposition Congress also lashed out at the BJP and accused Mr Modi of changing history.

“Modi ji, history is not changed... and history will remember you for Adani’s dark deeds,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shriante said.

The opposition demanded a discussion on allegations of fraud and stock manipulation against the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate whose founder Gautam Adani is said to enjoy a close relationship with the prime minister. The Adani Group has strongly denied the allegations.

The move has also been criticised by academics and observers.

Ashok Swain, columnist and academic, wrote: "India's Hindu Nationalist government even deleting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu Nationalist from India's history book."

"This erasure of history is so dangerous. What they don't want us (public) to know/remember, the foremost episode in India's history. Who killed Gandhi?" wrote lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur.

Journalist Swati Chaturvedi wrote: "Remember the Taliban bringing down the Bamyan Buddhas, after erasing the Mughals from our history books will the Taj Mahal & Red Fort be destroyed. Never thought India would have something in common with the Taliban."