CBSE’s latest decision to remove several chapters from the history and political science syllabi of Classes 11 and 12 is in tandem with the trend seen in recent years
On 23 April morning, when Tehelka’s editor-in-chief, Charanjit Ahuja, reminded me it’s the World Book Day, I was certain to focus on the freshly published books. But as I got started, collecting updates on the new titles, what struck were hitting news reports on text books, focusing on the CBSE’s (Central Board of Secondary Education) latest decision for the removing several chapters from the history and political science syllabi of Classes 11 and 12, including the Non-Aligned Movement, the Cold War era, the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of Mughal courts and the industrial revolution. And in the class 10 syllabus, the topic “impact of globalisation on agriculture” from a chapter on ‘Food Security’ has been dropped.
Much more, along the off-with- it strain! According to latest news reports, the CBSE 2022-23 curriculum, has removed translated excerpts from two poems in Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the “Religion, Communalism and Politics — Communalism, Secular State” section of NCERT’s Class 10 textbook “Democratic Politics II”.
Chapters on “democracy and diversity” have also been dropped. Also axed is a chapter on “Central Islamic Lands” from the History course content for Class 11…Social Science themes that have been axed include “impact of globalisation on agriculture” from a chapter on Food Security in the Class 10 curriculum. A chapter on “Cold war era and Non-aligned Movement” has been dropped from the Class 12 Political Science curriculum.
To quote from the news reports: “The CBSE has also dropped the course content from chapters on ‘democracy and diversity’. The dropped chapter “Central Islamic Lands” in the class 11 history syllabus talks about the rise of Islamic empires in the Afro-Asian territories and its implications for economy and society. The chapter focused on arenas of Islam in reference to its emergence, the rise of the caliphate and empire building….Similarly, in the class 12 history syllabus, the dropped chapter titled ‘The Mughal Court: Reconstructing Histories through Chronicles’ examined the chronicles of Mughal courts to reconstruct the social, religious and cultural history of the Mughals.”
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In fact, this latest news on text books comes with backgrounders! As in these recent years, the RSS’s intrusion into the education sphere was more than apparent, when the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, had sent a list of recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) demanding a host of changes in its textbooks. Batra had asked the NCERT to remove English, Urdu, and Arabic words, a poem by the revolutionary poet Pash and a couplet by Mirza Ghalib, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore, extracts from painter MF Husain’s autobiography.
