Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday deemed the recommendations for replacing the word India with ‘Bharat’ in school textbooks as “not acceptable”. The recommendations were sent to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) after one of its panels accepted a proposal on the same. The NCERT-appointed sociology committee has recommended that the name of the country be changed to ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’ in social science textbooks.
“The Constitution describes our country as India and Bharat. The Sangh Parivar fears the politics of inclusion that India represents. A part of it (the recommendations) is the aversion to the word India,” Pinarayi Vijayan said. Pinarayi Vijayan further compared the proposal to use ‘Bharat’ instead of India to the earlier exclusion of some chapters from the NCERT textbooks.
“The new proposals should be seen as a continuation of the arbitrary exclusion (of topics) from school textbooks, including the section on Mughal history and the section on the RSS ban following Gandhi’s assassination,” Pinarayi Vijayan said. The Kerala Chief Minister said the NCERT has always held positions that are “in favour of” the Sangh Parivar, attempting to “distort history”.
“The textbook committee is keen on whitewashing the fake history created by the Parivar. The Sangh Parivar has always been against the idea of ​​India being based on pluralism and coexistence. The latest example of it is this proposal,” Pinarayi Vijayan said.
The CPI(M) leader asked people to come forward against the “unconstitutional” proposal submitted by the NCERT committee. The next set of books by NCERT will have the name ‘Bharat’ instead of India and a proposal of the same has been unanimously accepted by a committee, IC Issac, the panel’s chairman said on Wednesday. Recommendations have been sent to NCERT, Delhi and a final decision on the matter is awaited. Shortly after media reports of the proposal were out, the NCERT said it was “too premature” to comment on it.
Source: India Today
