'History circulating in WhatsApp': historians slam NCERT deleting topics
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New Delhi: After the NCERT's recent move to omit certain topics from CBSE textbooks for students, a group of historians have come outsaying that pseudo histories, like those circulating in WhatsApp, will take the deleted space, NDTV reported.
A statement was released, and it was signed by renowned historians, including Romila Thapar, Jayati Gosh, Mridula Mukherjee, Apoorvanada, Irfan Habib and Upinder Singh.
They said that using the pandemic-induced lockdown to justify the dropping of topics like the history of the Mughal courts, the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, and the Emergency from social science, history and political science textbooks of classes 6 to 12 was contentious.
The fresh editions of these NCERT textbooks simply made the deletions the norm, even though the society is in the post-pandemic context where school education is back to normalcy, and there are no classes in online mode.
They argued that reducing the study of history to "such monolithic accounts" will result in the rise of pseudo-histories of communal and casteist varieties, they said. They added that such histories are already circulating among the masses through WhatsApp and other social media applications.
Earlier, after slashing prominent parts of history from the curriculum, NCERT reasoned that it was a professional exercise to reduce the burden on students after the pandemic hit. It stated that it has no intention to suppress historical facts and has no ulterior political move. The board also denied allegations that the changes were made to suit a particular ideology.
