NEW DELHI: The deletion of some content on Mahatma Gandhi from the Class 12 textbooks could be an oversight, NCERT chief Dinesh Saklani said on Wednesday, responding to the controversy over the new omissions.
The removal of portions of the RSS ban after Gandhi’s assassination and references to his pursuits of Hindu-Muslim amity has snowballed into a political controversy.
Saklani said the furor over the missing content on Gandhi's assassination has been “blown out of proportion” as new books under the National Education Policy 2020 will roll out next year.
Speaking to the TNIE, Saklani said that no change was made after the rationalisation exercise last year.
“We have not made any changes since the rationalisation last year. We didn’t add even a comma or a full stop. We have followed all the procedures,” he said.
“If a chapter is removed or a big portion of the content is deleted, then that is discussed beforehand. But if one or two lines are deleted, that is not discussed,” he said, stressing that one or two lines from the chapter on Gandhi getting deleted could be an “oversight.”
On the ongoing debate, he said, “It is untimely and unwanted because last year, for three months NCERT gave its version bit by bit with all clarity. The whole nation was convinced and welcomed the decision. Even the student community was convinced and welcomed the move as their load was reduced during the Covid time.”
He further said the debate is “unnecessary and a waste of time, and NCERT has nothing to do with the debate.”
“Our priority is to roll out textbooks based on NEP 2020,” Saklani told this paper.
“We are going to publish foundational stage books. These foundational stage books for Class 1 and 2 will come out in another two or three months, and then the rest of the books till Class 12 will come out next year.”
As part of its syllabus rationalisation exercise last year, the NCERT, citing "overlapping" and "irrelevant" as reasons, dropped certain portions from the course, including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement, among others from its textbooks.
However, the rationalisation note had no mention of excerpts about Gandhi.
Saklani said the expert committee decided to remove specific chapters and delete some content.
“There is not one committee but many committees. All these committees have domain knowledge experts. These committees have professors from JNU, DU, BHU, Allahabad University, Punjab University, teachers from KVs and CBSE, members from ICHR and ICSSR, apart from NCERT faculty,” he said, adding that the director is not involved, neither can he interfere. “The director can approve but not reject what the committee decides.”