Whitewashing with a vengeance: Congress over deletions from NCERT textbooks

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday hit out at the government over some texts missing from NCERT's new class 12 textbooks, including Mahatma Gandhi's pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity irking the right-wing and the ban on the RSS for some time, and called it "whitewashing with a vengeance".

The NCERT, however, claims that no curriculum trimming has happened this year and the syllabus was rationalised last year in June.

"Gandhiji's death had a magical effect on communal situation in the country", "Gandhiji's pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists", "organisations like RSS were banned for some time", "communal politics began to lose its appeal"--these are among the texts missing from class 12 political science textbooks for the new academic session.

Tagging a media report on it, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Twitter, "Whitewashing with a vengeance."

Whitewashing with a vengeance https://t.co/1aKrP3sHRl

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 5, 2023

Tagging another report which claimed that chapters related to the Mughals and Dalit writers have also been axed from the textbooks, he said, "This reveals the ruling regime's TRUE mindset. After all, the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr Ambedkar as well."

This reveals the ruling regime's TRUE mindset. After all the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr. Ambedkar as well. https://t.co/chFlkiqSDO

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 5, 2023

Union minister Shobha Karandlaje defended the decision to remove certain references from the textbooks and said the Congress was the biggest manipulator of India's historical facts and the BJP was only correcting the wrongdoings of the past.

"Facts that threatened @INCIndia and never made it to textbooks were -- Barbarism of Mughals, Era of Emergency, Genocide of Kashmir Pandits and Sikhs, Corruption of Congress. BJP is only correcting your wrongdoings," she said.

Asked about the deletions from the textbooks, an NCERT official said, "Subject expert panel had recommended dropping texts on Gandhi. It was accepted last year only. It was not mentioned in the list of rationalised content due to oversight. Any missing contents in the list will be notified in a day or two."