New Delhi. Rejecting allegations of saffronisation of school curriculum, the NCERT director has said that references to the Gujarat riots and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in school textbooks were revised because teaching about the riots could “create violent and depressed citizens.”
Interacting with the agency’s editors at PTI headquarters, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) director Dinesh Prasad Saklani on Saturday said changes in textbooks are part of annual revisions and should not be made a matter of hue and cry.
When asked about changes in NCERT textbooks regarding the Gujarat riots or the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Saklani said, “Why should we teach about riots in school textbooks? We want to create positive citizens, not violent and depressed individuals.”
He said, “Should we teach our students in such a way that they become aggressive, create hatred in society or become victims of hatred? Is this the aim of education? Should we teach such young children about the riots… When they grow up, they can learn about it, but why in school textbooks. Let them understand what happened and why when they grow up. The uproar about changes is irrelevant.’
Saklani’s comments come at a time when new textbooks have hit the market with several deletions and changes. The revised textbook of political science for Class 12 does not mention the Babri Masjid but refers to it as a “three-domed structure”.It has reduced the Ayodhya section from four to two pages and removed details from the previous edition.
It instead appears to focus on the Supreme Court verdict that paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple at the site where the disputed structure stood before it was razed down by kar sevaks in December 1992. The apex court’s verdict was widely accepted in the country. The consecration of the Ram idol at the temple was performed by the Prime Minister on January 22 this year.
