Oversight, should not be blown out of proportion: NCERT chief on missing texts in new school books

New Delhi: Amid controversy over certain content related to Mahatma Gandhi's assassination being dropped from its textbooks without any notification, NCERT chief Dinesh Saklani on Wednesday said it could have been an "oversight" that some deletions were not announced in its rationalisation exercise last year.

Reiterating all necessary procedures were followed during the rationalisation that saw several crucial chapters getting truncated, Saklani said it should not be "blown out of proportion" and all changes which have been carried out in the new textbooks will be notified in a day or two.

His comments come after the new NCERT textbooks hit the market and it was found that more contents than the ones notified in the curriculum rationalisation booklet last year are missing.

Gandhiji's death had magical effect on communal situation in the country", "Gandhi's pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists" and "Organisations like RSS were banned for some time" are among the texts missing from the class 12 political science textbook for the new academic session.

"Subject expert panel had recommended dropping certain texts on Gandhi. It was accepted last year only. It was not mentioned in the list of rationalised content may be due to oversight. It should not be blown out of proportion," Saklani told PTI.

"Nothing can be omitted overnight, there are proper procedures and professional ethics have to be followed. There is nothing intentional behind it," he added.

Saklani claimed that no curriculum trimming has taken place this year and the syllabus was rationalised in June last year.

Asked whether there are more such contents for other subjects and classes which have been dropped and were not announced during rationalisation, the NCERT chief said, "We are looking into it".

"If more such contents are found, which were missed due to oversight we will notify them shortly... mostly in a day or two," he said.

As part of its "syllabus rationalisation" exercise last year, the NCERT, citing "overlapping" and "irrelevant" as reasons, dropped certain portions from the course including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, among others from its textbooks.

The rationalisation note had no mention of excerpts about Gandhi.

Congress hit out at the government over the issue calling it "whitewashing with a vengeance".

A note by NCERT on its website reads, "In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was felt imperative to reduce the content load on students. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 also emphasises reducing the content load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with a creative mindset. In this background, the NCERT had undertaken the exercise to rationalise the textbooks across all classes and all subjects." "The present edition is a reformatted version after carrying out the changes. The present textbooks are rationalised textbooks. These were rationalised for the session 2022-23 and will continue in 2023-24," it adds.