Kerala Govt Writes To Centre On NCERT's Recommendation Replacing 'India' In Textbooks

NCERT panel suggested replacing 'India' with 'Bharat' in all Social Science textbooks on Wednesday.

Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty sent the letter through email to PM Modi and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan seeking to intervene in the matter. 

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Two days after the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) suggested calling 'India' as 'Bharat' in all Social Science textbooks, Kerala government on Friday sought the intervention of the Central government to reconsider the recent recommendation of the panel. Kerala Education Minister V Sivankutty sent the letter through email to PM Modi and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan seeking to intervene in the matter. 

According to PTI, a high-level committee for social sciences, formed by NCERT to revise the school curriculum, recommended replacing 'India' with 'Bharat' in school textbooks for all classes in India. 

In the letters, Minister Sivankutty emphasised the significance of maintaining the current practice in the best interests of the educational system and the nation's unity, which lives on its various cultural history in his letters.

Stating that students of all generations have learned about the country's history and heritage with the name India, the Minister said that any change to it would lead to confusion and hinder the continuity of the educational system. 

He alleged there were speculations that NCERT's current stance would support only certain ideologies. 

Further, he alleged that the stand has raised concern about the distortion of history and bias in the educational system. 

The minister stressed that such recommendations must be scrutinised to ensure that they do not serve any particular political or ideological goal.

On Thursday, CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that the NCERT panel's recommendation to replace 'India' with 'Bharat' cannot be accepted and it could only be seen as a continuation of the recent arbitrary exclusion of certain portions from textbooks. 

In April 2023, NCERT deleted portions of Mughal history and the banning of the RSS after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination from the new Class 12 political science and history textbooks.