Kerala schools to continue teaching portions on Babri Masjid demolition deleted from NCERT textbook
‘Textbooks should not comprise narrow ideological positions or propaganda of any movement,’ the state’s general education minister V Sivankutty said.
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Schools in Kerala will continue teaching portions about the demolition of the Babri Masjid that have been deleted from the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s political science textbook, the state’s general education minister V Sivankutty said on Tuesday, Manorama reported.
The autonomous education body’s updated political science textbooks from class 6 to class 12 does not mention Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid by name. Instead, it refers to the erstwhile mosque as a “three-dome structure [that] was built at the site of Shri Ram’s birthplace” by Mughal emperor Babur’s general Mir Baqi in the 16th century.
“Textbooks should not comprise narrow ideological positions or propaganda of any movement,” PTI quoted Sivankutty as saying. “Actual history and science should be taught to students.”
Sivankutty said that the Kerala government had, in the past, brought out parallel textbooks containing portions of lessons on Mughal history and the 2002 Gujarat riots that had been omitted from the council’s textbooks.
These parallel textbooks were prepared keeping in mind Kerala’s secular and progressive culture, and to uphold constitutional values, the minister said. The state’s curriculum committee will decide on a similar course of action with regard to the deleted references to the Babri Masjid, Manorama quoted Sivankutty as saying.
The Babri Masjid was demolished by Hindutva extremists in December 1992, because...
