‘Why should we teach about riots’: NCERT director on rewrite of Ayodhya dispute in textbook

‘Why should we teach about riots’: NCERT director on rewrite of Ayodhya dispute in textbook

Responding to news reports of tweaks in the newly revised National Curriculum for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook, its director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said there were "no attempts to saffronise the curriculum" and all changes were based on "evidences and facts".

In an interview with news agency PTI, Saklani said, "Why should we teach students about riots?". The purpose of the textbook was not to "create violent, depressed citizens", he said. Saklani added that the history was taught in schools to give out facts, and not to make it a "battleground".

"Hatred, violence are not the subjects of teaching in school," he told PTI, adding that they "shouldn't be focus of textbooks."

The Indian Express on Sunday reported that the revised NCERT Class 12 Political Science textbook, which hit the market last week, does not mention the Babri Masjid by name calling it a “three-domed structure,” has pruned the Ayodhya section from four to two pages and deleted telling details from the earlier version. These include: the BJP rath yatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya; the role of kar sevaks; communal violence in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992; President’s rule in BJP-ruled states; and the BJP’s expression of “regret over the happenings at Ayodhya”.

Saklani further said that the revision of textbooks was a "global practice" and "in interest of education". "If anything becomes irrelevant, it will have to be changed," he said, referring to the deletions from the books, while clarifying that he does not "dictate or interfere" in the process of revision of textbooks, and that it was done by subject experts.

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