NCERT scraps evolution, periodic table for high school; experts baffled

In 2018, then-junior education minister Satyapal Singh asserted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is "scientifically wrong" since none of "our ancestors...saw an ape turning into a man" and called for its removal from the curriculum. Now, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has permanently deleted it from the high school syllabus along with the periodic table.

• Ever since coming to power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been accused of selectively editing out crucial topics from the students' curriculum to suit its narrative of culture, history, and science.
• There have been numerous instances of the ruling party's leaders promoting pseudoscientific ideas in tandem with religious fundamentalist forces across the globe, which go against the Constitutional principles of scientific temper.

Chapters on the periodic table, evolution theory, and environmental sustainability, among others, have been scrapped from the syllabi of Class 9 and 10, which will affect around 13.4 crore children. After the NCERT released books for the new academic session, over 4,500 scientists and teachers signed an appeal organized by the Kolkata-based Breakthrough Science Society to reinstate the chopped portions.

Reportedly, the NCERT temporarily removed the said topics from the syllabus to help reduce children's workload during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the erasure, which includes a section of Michael Faraday's contribution to the understanding of electricity and magnetism, has now been made permanent. In non-science subjects, chapters on the industrial revolution, democracy and its challenges, diversity, and political parties, among others, have been removed.

The NCERT earlier said that "rationalization" is needed when content overlaps or is irrelevant. The National Education Policy (NEP), implemented in 2020, says that students need to become critical thinkers and problem solvers. Thus, it advocates active learning over memorization. It also aims at "a rootedness and pride in India, and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and traditions."

Despite drawing flak for his statement in 2018, Singh reiterated it in 2019, saying, "We are descendants of rishis (sages)," not monkeys as propounded by Darwin, a British. Singh's statement found support from the BJP's then-general secretary Ram Madhav. However, then-Union education minister Prakash Javadekar asked Singh to refrain from making such comments and stressed that science shouldn't be diluted.

Months before Singh's statement, Turkey's right-wing populist leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan removed evolution from the country's high school syllabus. Religious fundamentalists have railed against the theory of evolution because it disproves the creationist myths of all major religions. However, Darwin's theory is supported by a plethora of evidence, including genetic evidence, fossil records, homologous structures, vestigial organs, and comparative embryology, among others.