Emergency made part of school syllabus during UPA rule, 3 decades after imposition

New Delhi: It took three decades for the Emergency imposed by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi, a 21-month period marked by censorship and mass arrests of opposition leaders, to make an entry into NCERT political science textbooks.

Curiously, it happened under the Congress-led UPA rule in 2007.

While there are still complaints that school textbooks are yet to reflect the full excesses of the Emergency, several passages about the dark period got pruned as late as 2023 under the BJP as part of a curriculum rationalisation exercise following the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Krishna Kumar, former NCERT chairman, the Emergency was introduced in class 12 political science textbooks in 2007 after the revision of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

He, however, did not elaborate on the process of introducing the subject into the curriculum.

In the textbook published in 2007, 25 pages of a chapter, "the crisis of democratic order", detailed the nature of the crisis, the argument behind it, the supporters and the opponents, and how the Emergency shaped the politics of the time.

The Emergency and anti-Sikh riots were included in the textbooks despite the Congress government being in power as academia was fully autonomous then, said Anita Rampal, who was the chairperson of some committees constituted by the NCERT for the development of textbooks.

"The textbook advisors had met then HRD Minister Arjun Singh to let him know what was being incorporated into textbooks and there was absolutely no government interference.

"NCERT or for that matter academics was fully autonomous then. The fact that Emergency or anti-Sikh riots could be included in the curriculum that too with cartoons critical of Indira Gandhi... it is unthinkable in today's time," Rampal, also a former Dean of Delhi University's Faculty of Education, told PTI.

The chapter included excerpts from Indira Gandhi's speech to the nation on All India Radio, critical cartoons by RK Laxman, details of the Shah Commission report on the excesses of the period, several newspaper clippings about the announcement of Emergency and subsequent defeat of the Congress in Lok Sabha polls, Amul's tongue-in-cheek take on forced sterilisation, clippings on power shutdown that stopped newspapers from printing and Telegram messages reflecting attempts to censor the press.

Some of the news clippings read: "State of Emergency declared", "State of security in peril, says PM", "Several leaders arrested" and "Rights suspended". Another set of news clippings highlighted the end of the Emergency: "Mrs Gandhi defeated", "Cong rout in total", and "Nightmare is over, says Vajpayee".

The Amul cartoon strip showed the Amul girl dressed up as a nurse with butter brick on her tray saying "We have always practised compulsory sterilisation".

A satirical cartoon included in the textbook shows a man lying on the floor marked as Congress, while with the "common man" stood leaders who opposed the Emergency such as Jagjivan Ram, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Other cartoons on factional fights within the Janata Party and Indira Gandhi's confrontation with the Shah Commission were also included.

The preface of the political science earlier said it was a "tribute to the maturity of Indian democracy".

Political scientist and Swaraj India President Yogendra Yadav, who was a member of the drafting panel then, noted that prior to 2007, political school textbooks were limited to India's Independence, leaving students to understand 21st-century politics without any knowledge of the events that took place in the latter half of the 20th century.

"Introduction of Emergency in school textbooks was no oversight, it was consciously done because the idea was to produce totally non-partisan textbooks so sordid details about the Emergency period were mentioned in a factual manner, without wondering that it was embarrassing for the Congress government," he told PTI.

"You cannot teach political science to students sidestepping the major events, which had a significant influence on society and polity, no matter whether controversial or not. The books only mentioned established facts taken from government sources, which cannot be disputed by anybody," he added.

Yadav and political scientist Suhas Palshikar had opposed the latest revisions in NCERT textbooks in 2023, which were also criticised by opposition parties. They wrote to the NCERT objecting to the new textbooks carrying their names and disassociated themselves from the revisions.

This was the first time the two political scientists stood against the NCERT. In 2012 under the UPA rule, Yadav and Palshikar resigned from the drafting panel in the wake of a row over a cartoon of B R Ambedkar in school textbooks.

In the recent rationalisation exercise in 2023, at least five pages from that chapter have been pruned.

The deleted content pertains to paras on controversies surrounding the decision to impose the Emergency, and the abuse of power and malpractices committed by the Indira Gandhi government.

While some of the cartoons have been truncated in size, box items on the Shah Commission's report, Indira Gandhi's address to the nation, the Naxalite movement and the custodial death of a student during the period have been dropped.

In 2018, the then-HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar alleged that the textbooks did not reflect the "whole story" of the Emergency in school curricula for students to understand the reality of the time.

"In our textbooks, there are some chapters and columns on the Emergency that will be reviewed and this black chapter and assault on democracy of the country will figure some more in the books..." "We will include the whole story of Emergency in the curriculum. Children should know the reality of that time. That is why the Emergency period is considered to be the second freedom struggle," he said.

The Emergency was imposed 50 years ago on June 25, 1975, following a period of political unrest and a court verdict that declared Gandhi's election null and void.