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The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is well known for coming out with surprising changes in the publication of text books; deleting some segments; inserting some others etc; It has recently compressed three subjects into one single book for Class 7.
Earlier there were three separate books for History, Geography, Social and Political life. All these three subjects have now become one single book under the title “Exploring Society – India and Beyond” (Part-1). This is for the first term of classes. Part.2 is under print. It would be for the rest of the months.
It is noteworthy that lessons pertaining to the Mughal Kings have been removed in the new edition. Chapters related to Delhi Sultanate have vanished. Many more removals and clippings would probably be there in the second part of the text book under print.
The old text book used the names “Hindustan” and “Hind.” The revised text book has used “Bharat” and “India” in lessons about the origins. Segments on the rule of Sultans have all been clipped. Quotation from Kautilya’s “Arthashastra” have been included in a chapter in the new text book. There is also a mention of the Varna-Jati system that emerged from Vedic texts. The second part of the text book is likely to contain amazing omissions and additions. The unwarranted revisions seem to convert education into a political tool. Such enigmatic changes in text books are baffling, indeed. Academicians fear over distortions, disinformation and interpolations under the garb of educational innovations. Let us await the response of erudite educationists and scholars!
