As the NCERT continues to face criticism for "rationalisation" of its textbooks, Kerala student union joined in by protesting outside the AG's office in Thirvunanthapuram. The police allegedly used water cannons and tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.
According to reports, around 300 members of the Kerala Students Union joined the protests and raised slogans against the Centre.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan too earlier strongly condemned the dropping of certain chapters and portions from NCERT Class 12 textbooks and alleged that "complete saffronisation" of academic books was the objective behind the move.
The NCERT recently dropped from its Class 12 history textbook certain portions on Mahatma Gandhi and how his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity "provoked Hindu extremists". It also left out the portion where the government had placed a ban on the RSS after Gandhi's assassination. The revision of textbooks by obfuscating facts has triggered a row, PTI reported.
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The NCERT’s latest revision has received heavy criticism from academics, as well as Opposition politicians, who came up in arms against the Narendra Modi-led government. Around 250 historians from India and abroad issuing a joint statemen saying that the decision of the NCERT to drop entire chapters from History textbooks for Class 12 and delete statements from other textbooks is a matter of deep concern.
Outlook has previously reported on how political parties are often guilty of trying to change the past according to their ideologies.
Outlook's July 2022 magazine issue titled 'Errors, Ommissions, Insertions' also looked at the syllabus rationalisation process by NCERT in the context of politicisation of history and the politics of exclusion.
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(With inputs from PTI)
