Indian academics warn edits to high school textbooks are attempt to rewrite history

When Manish Jain first heard about the changes made to the textbooks he helped create for Indian high school students, he was unsure how to react.

But he knew exactly how he felt about it.

"You feel pained, and it is not just because one is associated with [the textbooks]," said Jain, a professor in the school of education studies at New Delhi's Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University.  

"What should be given to our youth and young is being denied. So that's the pain. It is not about our names. It is about what could be possible." 

The textbooks were used in history and political science courses. The changes, introduced by NCERT, an independent body that works under India's federal education ministry and is responsible for syllabus revisions and textbook content, include dropping chapters on Mughal history, federalism and diversity and a section on the deadly communal riots in India's Gujarat state more than 20 years ago. 

Jain, 52, is one of more than 30 academics who wrote an open letter in June asking for their names to be removed from the textbooks' credits page, after what they called "unilateral" and "substantive" revisions. 

The controversy first broke out when two of the books' chief advisors, political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Phalsikar, wrote to NCERT, accusing it of changes that left the text "mutilated beyond recognition." 

The textbooks, once "a source of pride for us, are now a source of embarrassment," the chief advisors wrote.

Critics see Hindu nationalist agenda 

The topics dropped include a chapter on Mughal history, when the Muslim dynasty ruled over India, and paragraphs on attempts by extreme Hindu nationalists to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, who was killed in 1948.

NCERT also moved information on Darwin's theory of evolution to a later grade. 

WATCH | Professors angry over edits to history textbooks: 

India accused of rewriting textbooks — and history

1 year ago

Duration 2:38

Textbooks used in schools across India have been edited to remove sections about politically touchy subjects, now the government is being accused of rewriting history. 

Critics see the changes as purely political, and a means for the Indian government to realign the curriculum and rewrite history to fit its Hindu nationalist agenda. 

"An entire section on the Gujarat riots has been deleted" from the grade 12 textbook, Jain told CBC. "We know in the context of the present regime what the Gujarat riots mean."

The 2002 riots, which killed more than a thousand people, mostly Muslims, broke out after Muslims were suspected of setting a train carriage of Hindu pilgrims alight, triggering revenge attacks by Hindu groups, and unleashing three days of intense communal violence.

The riots are a sensitive subject for India's ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat's top leader at the time of the riots, was accused of being complicit in the violence, a charge he denies.

Modi's government has been accused of passing policies that are discriminatory to India's Muslim minority. This includes a law that grants citizenship to migrants from nearby countries who are members of six other religions, but not if they are Muslim. 

Some say edits will 'help students'

NCERT has justified the revisions as a way to streamline the curriculum and lighten the workload for students after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The agency released a statement in response to the professors' open letter, saying NCERT owns the copyright to the textbooks and that since there's no single author of the textbooks, removing any of the authors' names is "out of the question."

The reasoning behind the edits makes sense to Geetanjali Shukla, 23, who has been tutoring students at a small private school in Mumbai for the last year. 

"Mughals are overrepresented in our history books and to avoid that repetition, [NCERT] have removed a few chapters," she told CBC News during a break in her class. 

"It will help students because the content is reduced," she said. "We will be saying facts [with few] words, but in an effective way."

The furor over the numerous textbook changes has only grown over the last few months, pitting academics against each other. Another group has defended the need to update the textbooks, accusing the professors who want their names removed of spreading propaganda. 

It is common to see controversies over textbook revisions erupt in India, with governments at both the state and national level attempting to make changes or drop topics to bring the curriculum more in line with their ideological beliefs.

'Direction of change ... is of concern'

For Jain and his colleagues, the most recent edits are purely political. 

He said it's normal for textbooks to be updated in a transparent manner, but it's the "direction of change that is of concern." 

Peter Ronald DeSouza, another professor who requested his name be removed from the books, wrote an op-ed in the Indian Express newspaper stating the textbook changes "show either that the NCERT does not value its autonomy or its leadership does not understand its place in a democracy."

Despite the newspaper headlines, Jain doesn't believe the protest by his group of academics will reverse the changes to the textbook. But he has no regrets about speaking out, because of the dangers involved in attempting to erase history. 

"When we deny information, then there is a possibility that myths and lies can substitute information and truth," he said. "Saying that we do feel perturbed is also, I think, a responsibility as a teacher, as a citizen."

Jain added he also felt compelled to speak up as the parent of school-aged children, in grades 9 and 12. He wanted them to get an accurate account of Indian history in the classroom.