BABRI MAZJID’S NAME ERASED, COMMUNAL RIOTS ARE DISAPPEARED. SFI STRONGLY CONDEMN AND PROTEST AGAINST THE NCERT MOVE TO SAFFRONISE TEXTBOOKS.

Central Executive Committee of the Students Federation of India, strongly condemn the recent changes made by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) under BJP-led government to the Class 12 Political Science textbook. The term “Babri Masjid” has been replaced with “a three-domed structure”, which is a stark departure from the historical facts. Furthermore, other details that contradict the Sangh Parivar narrative have been deliberately omitted.

The old textbook had provided a clear account of the Babri Masjid’s history, stating that it was built in the 16th century by Mir Baqi, a general of the Mughal emperor Babur. However, the new textbook presents a distorted version, simply stating that a three-domed structure was built in 1528 at the birthplace of Lord Ram, and that it contained deities as part of worship. This is a blatant attempt to rewrite history and promote a biased narrative. The sections describing the Rath Yatra led by Sanghparivar forces and the communal riots that followed have been removed, as have the explicit details of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The four-page section has been condensed to just two pages, which is a clear indication of the NCERT’s efforts to sanitize the history of the event. These textbooks are used in schools under the CBSE curriculum, which means that students are being fed a distorted version of history. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 was a tragic event that was the culmination of sustained hate propaganda and communal riots. This issue was leveraged by the BJP to create polarization and come to power.

Last year, on a continuing political manuipulation of the textbooks, the NCERT had also removed sections from Class 11 and 12 textbooks that discussed Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts to promote Hindu-Muslim unity and the banning of the RSS after Gandhi’s assassination. Sections on the reforms during Mughal rule and the contributions of freedom fighter and educationist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were also cut. Chapters on democracy, secularism, people’sr movements, and pluralism were also removed from the Class 10 textbook.

We, the Central Executive Committee of the Students Federation of India demand that the NCERT restore the original textbooks and not compromise on the integrity of the educational curriculum. We urge students of India not to fall prey to the traps set by the Sangh Parivar and to resist the attempts to saffronize the syllabuses. We will continue to fight for the right to learn about our country’s complex and diverse history in an honest and unbiased manner. We appeal all our units to educate students with the unbiased version of the history and oppose all forms of saffronisation of education by BJP led union govermnent.

Mayukh Biswas (General Secretary)
VP Sanu (President)