Modi govt has carried out the most SWEEPING changes (yet) in school textbooks 📚 since it came to power in 2014!
Starting today, @IndianExpress will take you through the GLARING deletions in NCERT's history, pol science & sociology textbooks for Classes 6 to 12. #Thread (1/n)
👉The first part of our investigation (out today) focuses on changes made to the content related to contemporary India 🇮🇳
👉The most significant of them is the deletion of references to the 2002 Gujarat riots from TWO ✌️textbooks.
(2/n)
👉Two pages on the riots have been dropped from the Class 12 pol sc book. These pages provide the chronology of events -- a train full of karsevaks set on fire followed by violence against Muslims -- & refer to the criticism of the state govt in failing to control violence.
(3/n)
👉The 2nd reference has been removed from the Class 12 Sociology textbook. This is a paragraph that cites the example of Gujarat riots & anti-Sikh riots to describe how communalism drives people to "kill, rape, and loot members of other communities."
(4/n)
👉Content on public protests (that turned into social movements) in contemporary India has SHRUNK, drastically.
3 chapters on protests including those spearheaded by Narmada Bachao Andolan, Dalit Panthers & Bharatiya Kisan Union are now dropped from pol sc in Classes 6
to 12
👉Among other deletions on protests & social movements is an 'exercise box' (in the Class 12 sociology textbook) that asks students to discuss the recent farmers’ protests against the three farm laws passed by the Parliament.
(6/n)
🚨 Interestingly, the 'Emergency' has been whitewashed.
DELETED: A BIG section on controversies surrounding Emergency & excesses such as the arrest of political workers, restrictions on media, torture & custodial deaths, forced sterilisations in the Class 12 pol sc textbook
DELETED: A paragraph on the draconian impact of the Emergency on people & institutions in the Class 12 sociology book👇
(8/n)
👉Content on democracy has suffered the deepest cuts.
FOUR chapters about democracy & making of Indian democracy have been deleted from political science & history textbooks on the ground that similar topics have already been covered in other classes.
(9/n)
Among other redactions:
🚨A section describing the arbitrariness of colonial law through the example of sedition is no longer part of the Class 8 political science book.
Interestingly, this was the ONLY reference to sedition across ALL pol science & history textbooks
(10/n)
The above section (deleted from the Class 8 pol sc book) also carried the following exercise for students: "State one reason why you think the Sedition Act of 1870 was arbitrary? In what ways does the Sedition Act of 1870 contradict the rule of law?"
(11/n)
MORE: Former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s quote on Emperor Ashoka (in Class 6 history) & the Bhakra Nangal Dam (in Class 12 sociology) dropped.
(12/n)
ALL references to Naxalism & the Naxalite movement have been deleted across ALL history, political science & sociology textbooks of NCERT.
The ruling establishment's view that our history glorifies invaders at the cost of other kings has found an echo in how school textbooks have been reworked.
In the penultimate part of the investigation, @IndianExpress takes you through the deletions related to Muslim rulers.
We found that most of such changes have been made in ONE textbook. Before we jump into that, there's something we'd like you to show you.. (contd)
(2/n)
... the NCERT, curiously, replaced a table on changes in the Class 7 history with a new one (on its website) this week.
The new table doesn't reflect at least three deletions pertaining to Islamic rulers in the Class 7 history textbook ‘Our Past – II’.
(3/n)
DELETED: "A Dalit is likely to be confined to.. scavenging..."
"..women & shudras not allowed to study Vedas"
The 2nd part of our investigation on the revised school textbooks 📚 focuses on the key deletions on caste, discrimination & minorities
🧵 (1/n) indianexpress.com/article/expres…
.@IndianExpress scrutinised 21 history, pol science & sociology textbooks for Classes 6 to 12 to find that deletions included several examples of discrimination faced by lower castes & minorities, which were introduced in 2007 to “build a sense of a just society”.
(2/n)
For instance, the section on 'varnas' in the Class 6 history textbook is reduced by HALF.
Sentences on the hereditary nature of varnas, & rejection of the varna system have been removed.
Latest edition of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released today. The report is significant since it maps changes in school education in rural India since the Covid19 pandemic struck.
🚨Big change noticed in the school enrollment pattern. Proportion of students studying in govt schools increased from 64.3% in 2018 (pre-pandemic) to 70.3% in 2021. Increase noticed across all grades.
In the pre-pandemic yrs, govt school enrollment had been steady.
(2/n)
🚨 Private school enrollment, on the other hand, has dropped from 32.5% in 2018 to 24.4% in 2021.
🚨 62% of headmasters surveyed said the shift from private to govt schools is due to financial distress
More on the events leading up to Pratap Bhanu Mehta quitting Ashoka University 👇🏽
1. Ashoka’s founders, including Ashish Dhawan & Pramath Raj Sinha, had met Mehta recently & are said to have referred to the “current political environment” to suggest that he should leave #Thread
2. That meeting with the founders was held without Vice-Chancellor Malabika Sarkar, and so breached established norms under which founders, respecting the university’s autonomy, didn’t deal with a faculty member over the V-C’s head
3. Mehta sent his resignation letter to the V-C after the meeting citing the conversation with the founders
Deeply honoured to win the International Press Institute-India Award 2020. It recognises my coverage of the LS Polls 2019 revealing the divide within the Election Commission in its response to complaints alleging poll code violations by PM Narendra Modi & Amit Shah #Thread
My first newsbreak (on 30.04.19) in @IndianExpress during the general elections highlighted how the EC took unusually long to discuss and decide complaints against the incumbent Prime Minister
Once the decisions finally came in, I reported that the poll watchdog had overruled the opinion of two of its officers who had red flagged the PM’s election speech referring to the Balakot airstrikes (3/n) indianexpress.com/elections/ec-o…
By & large, past Board toppers have good lives. But looking back, many feel school education did not provide the foundation it claims to deliver.
We conclude our series (Tracking India's Toppers 🎓👩🎓) by asking what they think of school several yrs after graduation
🧵 (1/n)
When Shreyas Sudhaman, 22, the 2014 ICSE topper, went abroad for his undergraduate education in chemical engineering at Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, he realised that school hadn’t quite equipped him with some key skills 👇👇
(2/n)
3.Many toppers wish someone had briefed them better on options available post-school, loan programmes, & helped them with choice of colleges & careers -- in the absence of which, many ended up majoring in conventional disciplines before discovering their real interest.