NCERT to check correction in chapter of Godhra riots

As a row breaks out over Madhya Pradesh government seeking correction in a textbook of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on the description of the 2002 Gujarat riots, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday threw the ball into the court of the education council.

"You raise questions when changes are made. You also raise questions when changes are not made. All these things are over. NCERT will look into it," the minister said while replying to a question on the issue.

The Union HRD minister's response on the issue comes a day after his deputy Satya Pal Singh, Minister of State for HRD, was quoted by a section of media as saying that the ministry will look into the objections raised by the Madhya Pradesh government and take action.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Madhya Pradesh has raised objections to the description of 2002 Gujarat riots in a chapter of the NCERT’s political science textbook for Class XII, demanding “correction” into it.

School Education Minister of the State Dipak Joshi wrote a letter to the HRD Ministry and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Wednesday, seeking correction in the Class XII political science textbook chapter titled ‘Recent developments in India politics.’

“The way the chapter describes the Godhra incident and its aftermath is totally wrong. Narendra Modi won the State (Assembly) elections soon after the Godhra carnage. We (have) sent a letter to the HRD ministry and the NCERT, asking them to correct the controversial chapter,” a news agency quoted Joshi as saying.

The state school education minister has also raised objections to some of the contents in a chapter on the imposition of Emergency under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi regime in the same NCERT textbook, titled ‘Politics in India since Independence.’

“The chapter praises the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, which is wrong,” he said.

Interestingly, the state education minister’s objection to the educational contents in the textbook comes months after the NCERT “revised and updated” all of its textbooks including that of the Class XII political science in consultation with the HRD ministry. The NCERT had also received a larger number of comments and suggestions from various stakeholders including state governments.