Persistence of ‘secular’ histories and their porous narratives
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For the love and sanctity of India, its history and social sciences…a conservative’s musings
The repeated revisions and pruning of the NCERT history and political studies textbooks under the current regime, has been in news again. History, politics, sociology and the way India’s past, its society and politics are represented rakes up matters among the most erudite of scholars who otherwise would care little for our schools and the sorry curricular transactions that transpire in our classrooms even with most thoughtful of textbooks. This time, several scholars associated with the NCERT’s social sciences textbooks seek removal of their names from them. The narrative of these texts with several deletions, these writers allege, ends with different meanings from what was originally intended. And these changes were done without their consent. They claim the repeated changes are attempts at whitewashing history, rather saffronising them. It is the consequence and one of the many orchestrated charades of Hindutva politics that in excising portions on RSS’s role in Gandhi’s assassinati