“A Dalit is likely to be confined to traditional occupations such as farm labor, manual scavenging or leather work…” Minorities “will face the risk that the majority community will seize political power and lose their religious or cultural institutions.” Will use the state machinery to suppress…” These sentences are among the many on the caste system and discrimination that have now been removed from school textbooks by the NCERT. These changes are part of the biggest change in the syllabus textbooks in the last eight years since the BJP-led NDA came to power.
The Indian Express scrutinized 21 history, political science and sociology textbooks for classes 6 to 12 and compared them with the ones currently taught in NCERT, revealing that the new syllabus has chapters on Dalits and minorities. has been cut. This deduction includes several instances of discrimination against lower castes and minorities. These chapters were introduced in the year 2007 to ‘build the spirit of a just society’.
NCERT explained the reason for removing chapters
The reasoning behind this by NCERT is that the objective of this exercise is to reduce the syllabus load for the students to make a quick recovery from the loss caused by COVID. So that students can complete their syllabus as soon as possible. However, before this, the council has been in the headlines for its content regarding castes. During the Congress-led UPA regime, a cartoon on Dalit icon B R Ambedkar was dropped from a class 11 political science textbook after protests. Last year, a report by a think-tank headed by BJP leader Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, which was submitted to the Parliamentary Committee on Education, claimed that textbooks focus more on caste.
3 examples of how untouchability operates have been omitted from a chapter on “Social Inequality and Exclusion” in Class 12 Sociology textbook Indian Society. These points included in this have been removed.
1) A Dalit is likely to be confined to traditional occupations such as farm labour, manual scavenging or leather work, with little chance of being able to find high-paying white-collar or professional work.
2) At the same time, because of untouchability, that Dalit cannot enter someone’s land forcibly, he is only forced to play the drum in any religious event. He continues to feel untouchable and humiliated. This included being forced to greet her in gestures, standing with her head bowed, never wearing a hat, never wearing clean and clean clothes, and so on, subjected to regular abuse.
3) An excerpt from the book ‘Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives’ by social activist Harsh Mander, which describes the ordeal of a scavenger by the hand of a Dalit, reads- “Excrement should be collected only at every seat. drains, or flows into open drains. It is Narayanamma’s job to collect it with her broom on a flat, tin plate and pile it in her basket. When the basket is full, she carries it on her head to a tractor-trolley parked half a kilometer away. And then she is back, waiting for the next call from the toilet…”
A section removed from the 12th class sociology book
A section has been omitted from the last chapter of Class 12 Sociology textbook ‘Social Change and Development in India’. The section explains, “How some members of the upper caste now feel that the government “does not pay any attention to them because they are not numerically important enough.”
This section also contained an excerpt from Satish Deshpande’s book ‘Contemporary India: A Social Approach’, which explained why earlier upper caste generations did not consider caste to be a reality of modern India. Deshpande is Professor of Sociology at Delhi University. In the same book, a quotation has been omitted from a paper from a previous chapter on “Social Movements” about Dalit women facing more threats than their upper-caste counterparts. 4 Imaginative Narratives have been omitted from the chapter “Similarity” of Class 7 Political Science book ‘Social and Political Life – Part II’.
Minorities and Discrimination
A box describing a common stereotype about Muslims saying that they are ‘not interested in girls’ education, why this far from the truth’ This section was also included in the Class 6 Political Science book ‘Social and Removed from Chapter ‘Diversity and Discrimination’ of ‘Political Life-II’. The picture of three girls studying together in this chapter has also been removed. In the book Social and Political Life-III in Political Science of Class 8, a Muslim woman is asked to wear jeans instead of the traditional one after communal harmony deteriorated in the area. This too has been removed from the chapter.
Caste system, know what was removed
In the class 6 history book (‘Our History – I’), the section on alphabets has been halved. The hereditary nature of the varnas, the classification of people as untouchables and the rejection of the varna system have all been omitted from the chapter ‘State, Raja and an Early Republic’. The removed portion reads, “The priests also said that the varna system was decided on the basis of birth. For example, if one’s parents were brahmins, then his child would automatically become brahmin. Later, he classified some people as untouchables. This included those who helped with the funeral rites of people, including some craftsmen and hunters. The priests told that stay away from contact with such people because the environment where these people live is polluted. Many people did not accept the varna system prescribed by the brahmins…”
These sentences were removed from the chapter of the ashram
The following sentence has now been omitted from the section on “ashrams” – the four stages of life defined by priests – in Chapter 6 of the Class 6 History textbook, “The system of ashrams allowed men to spend part of their lives in . Generally women were not allowed to study the Vedas and had to follow the ashrams chosen by their husbands. Women and Shudras were not allowed to study the Vedas in ancient India in the Class 6 history textbook. The chapter titled ‘Buildings, Paintings and Books’ has been omitted from a section of the “Puranas”. “The Puranas were written in simple Sanskrit poetry, and were meant to be heard by all, including women and Shudras, who were not allowed to study the Vedas.”
Social and Political Life – These sentences removed from Part I
A major part of the section on discrimination in the chapter titled ‘Diversity and Discrimination’ in the Class 6 Political Science Textbook (‘Social and Political Life – Part I’) has been removed. The deleted portion reads, “…the caste rules which were laid down did not allow the so called “untouchables” to work in the houses. For example, some groups were forced to collect garbage and remove dead animals from the village. But they were not allowed to enter the homes of the upper castes or to draw water from village wells, or even enter temples. Their children could not sit next to children of other castes in the school…” Another paragraph has been removed, adding that “Caste-based discrimination is not limited to preventing Dalits from carrying out certain economic activities.” , but it also deprives them of the respect given to others”.