The rationale behind the textbook rationalisation

As part of its syllabus rationalisation measures, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) last month removed portions about the 2002 Gujarat riots, Emergency, Cold War, Naxalite movement and Mughal courts from its class XII textbooks, among other subjects. The step was cited as a means to facilitate speedy recovery among students as they integrate themselves with offline classes, and to compensate the time loss due to the school closures during the pandemic phase. The changes in the school textbooks were also in keeping with NEP 2020 it was claimed, as the content reduction and increased flexibility of school curriculum will bring about a renewed emphasis on constructive learning as against the rote learning culture that was widely predominant.

Historian and professor emeritus Irfan Habib of Aligarh Muslim University, says that the selective removal of sections from textbooks “signifies misrepresentation of history that can impact whole generations; it will also disturb the chronological unfolding of events that will make comprehension of facts difficult for the students”. Students of history, he adds, must know that societies were structured differently, but textbook rationalisation, can deprive them of that perception. “For instance, obliterating foreign rule will reflect ignorance about the economic, social and intellectual history of those eras. In essence, history may be reduced to mere propaganda,” he says.

Talking about the recent syllabus change, a senior academic from the University of Delhi (DU), on condition of anonymity says, “History is a critical enquiry of the past. It is not about sanitising the yester years. To lessen the academic load, educators at the most can lessen the rubrics, but to completely eliminate whole portions would be tantamount to falsifying the past.”


He further adds, “Cleansing history should not be the agenda of any curriculum since students will develop a warped understanding of the past. Considering the fact that a lot of the information now comes through the social media which is often inaccurate and badly researched, removal of certain sections will further add to students’ confusion. In the long run, it may impact their overseas careers, as questions may be raised about their conceptual clarity and foundation. If their minds are not attuned to develop critical intelligence about the past, how will they evolve as competent graduates?”


The faculty underlines that History as a subject cannot be a “fairy tale”, but a dispassionate critical engagement of the past keeping the present in mind. “Hence, such rationalisation may do little to keep that balance,” he adds.


Principal Anshu Mittal of MRG School, Rohini, New Delhi however has a different view, as she says “While all sections are important, NCERT has given due diligence to remove certain topics which had already been taught and discussed extensively in preceding classes. It is a corrective course measure to ease off students’ study load, and also reduce content overlaps.”

She claims further that students as a whole have a strong sense of political and historical awareness. “They are well-versed in medieval and modern history from a very young age, hence there will not be any continuity problems. Since they have been performing well in History classes and tests since the offline classes started, to read the same sections all over again in class XII would be a repetitive exercise, and even exhaustive for them.”