THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Centre has turned down the Kerala government’s demand to reconsider the recommendation of a panel of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to replace ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’ in school textbooks. The state had intervened in the matter as it uses NCERT textbooks in Classes XI and XII for several subjects, including sociology, history, political science and economics.
In response to a letter from state General Education Minister V Sivankutty, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan defended the NCERT panel’s recommendation and said the Constitution recognises both ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’.
“India’s Constitution recognises both ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ as the official names of the country, which can be used interchangeably. NCERT duly acknowledges this spirit as enshrined in our Constitution and does not differentiate between the two,” Pradhan said in his reply to Sivankutty.
The Social Science committee of NCERT -- chaired by historian Prof C I Isaac -- had suggested that ‘India’ should be called ‘Bharat’ in all social science textbooks up to Class XII.
Justifying the panel’s recommendation, Pradhan said NCERT has been designated as an academic authority to lay down the curriculum and evaluation procedure for elementary education. “NCERT adopts a broad and widespread consultative approach for developing its curriculum framework, syllabus and textbooks,” the union minister said.
In the wake of the NCERT panel’s recommendation, Sivankutty had written to Pradhan in October last year urging him to intervene and review the proposal to replace ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’ in textbooks. Sivankutty said preserving the status quo in this matter was in the “best interests of our educational system and the unity of our diverse nation.”
In his letter, Sivankutty said the change from India to Bharat was ‘unnecessary’ and could lead to ‘confusion’ among students and citizens. He also pointed out that NCERT has had a history of taking positions that align with certain ideologies. “This has raised concerns about potential distortion of history and bias in education,” Sivankutty said in his letter.
Last year, the state had brought out supplementary textbooks to include portions deleted by NCERT from its textbooks, allegedly with political motives. The supplementary textbooks were brought out by the State Council for Educational Research and Training for subjects such as history, political science, sociology and economics.