NCERT Drops References To Maulana Azad From New Class 11 Political Science Textbook

After removing texts on Gandhi, Mughal History, and RSS ban among others, the NCERT has now dropped references to Maulana Azad from NCERT Class 11 Political Science textbook.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has removed references to freedom fighter and India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad from the NCERT Class 11 Political Science textbook. In its move to rationalise its syllabus last year, the NCERT has been removing certain portions from its courses citing them as overlapping and irrelevant. The topics excluded from the NCERT syllabus include those on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, RSS ban, among others. 

Importantly, the modifications to class 11 Political Science textbooks were not mentioned in the NCERT’s rationalisation note. However, the NCERT has stated that no fresh changes are being incorporated this year, and all the updates being carried out in the NCERT syllabus were drafted last year itself. 

“Certain changes not finding mention in the rationalised content book could be an ‘oversight’,” NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani was quoted as saying by news agency PTI, talking on the developments.

Notably, the changes to the NCERT class 11 Political Science textbooks also include revision to the first chapter named ‘‘Constitution - Why and How,’ in which, a line has been revised to drop Azad’s name from the constituent assembly committee meetings. After the revision, the line now reads: “Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or BR Ambedkar chaired these Committees.” 

The reference to Jammu and Kashmir’s conditional accession from the tenth chapter of the same book titled “The Philosophy of the Constitution”, has also been dropped. The paragraph that has been dropped from the chapter read: ““For example, the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian union was based on a commitment to safeguard its autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution.”

Notably, the Ministry of Minority Affairs discontinued the Maulana Azad Fellowship last year. Launched in 2009, the fellowship was aimed at providing financial aid to students from six notified minorities for a period of five years. 

In the past few days, the NCERT has also removed texts on “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” from the new NCERT Class 12 textbook. 

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