Joshi's fiat to NCERT

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI, OCT. 6. Unwilling to wait for the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to ``free history of objectionable attributes'', the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, today stepped in and instructed the NCERT to delete all references from history textbooks that hurt the religious sentiments of people.

Simultaneously, the Central Board of Secondary Education has been asked to direct all affiliated institutions to stop teaching and asking questions on such objectionable portions in textbooks.

Curiously enough, the book that provoked this action - Prof. Satish Chandra's text on medieval India - was anyway on its way out as the NCERT had already announced that it would be replaced by a new book from the next academic session.

Dr. Joshi issued the instructions after a meeting with a delegation of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee which asked him to remove ``certain objectionable comments on Guru Teg Bahadur's martyrdom'' in the NCERT's Class XI textbook on medieval India as it hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community.

Published in 1978, an objection was raised for the first time in 1997 to two references pertaining to the Guru's execution: ``The official explanation for this as given in some later Persian sources is that after his return from Assam, the Guru, in association with one Hafiz Adam, a follower of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, had resorted to plunder and rapine, laying waste the whole province of Punjab. According to Sikh tradition, the execution was due to the intrigues of some members of his family who disputed his succession.'' The matter was taken to court, but the Punjab High Court saw no need to interfere and make any alteration.

Still, ever since the NCERT began talking about a new curriculum and revision of existing history textbooks, this was one ``objectionable reference'' that was touted very often by the advocates of rewriting history within the Council and the Sangh Parivar.

But it was only after the Congress raised objections over their inclusion in the textbooks during a debate on saffronisation in the Delhi Legislative Assembly last month that the HRD Ministry decided to order their deletion. In fact, many an academic had anticipated such a move after the Congress - which has officially been opposing the communalisation of education - served as the mouthpiece of the BJP in the Delhi Assembly during the debate.

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