NEW DELHI: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) announced that it is dropping objectionable content against the Sikh community from the political science textbook for Class 12 students of the CBSE stream.
The portions have been removed in view of the representation received from the stakeholders, particularly a letter from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and a recommendation of the expert group set up by the NCERT.
Sanjay Kumar, Secretary of School Education, said that in the chapter of Political Science of Class 12 Punjab, there were two-three such lines in reference to which a letter was given by SGPC to the NCERT Director and requested that some points related to Anandpur Saheb resolution should be changed and reconsider it.
“The NCERT has its own procedure that when such a request is received, it forms a committee of exports and takes decisions based on the recommendations of that export committee. The SGPC says that it was written in the book that the Anandpur Sahib Resolution depicted that the Sikhs wanted a ‘separate Sikh nation’ for themselves, objecting to that point because no such thing has been said in Anandpur Sahib resolution”, he added.
Sanjay Kumar further said that the expert committee, which has been constituted by NCERT, has studied the Anandpur Sahib Revolution on this point and gave its recommendation to NCERT. On the basis of that, NCERT has made some minor changes in it and now decided to drop it.
“On the basis of that minor change NCERT has issued corrigendum to CBSE that the corrected version should be made aware to teachers and also removed from digital books”, he added.
The NCERT said that the experts’ committee examined the same and as per its recommendation, the following changes have been incorporated in Chapter VII — Regional Aspirations (Rationalised Class XII Political Science Textbook-Pg. 123)
“From the last sentence of the third paragraph under the sub-heading ‘Punjab’ the line’…but it could also be interpreted as a plea for a separate Sikh nation’ is dropped. Just before this line, the given statement is rewritten as ‘The Resolution was a plea for strengthening federalism in India’. In the same section (Sub-heading ‘Punjab’), from the last sentence of the fourth paragraph, ‘… and the creation of Khalistan’ is dropped”, the NCERT said.
The soft copy of the Class XII Political Science Textbook with changes is uploaded on the NCERT’s website. (ANI)