For more than a decade, CBSE students have read these translated passages from two Urdu poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the portion of NCERT’s Class 10 textbook “Democratic Politics II” titled “Religion, Communalism and Politics — Communalism, Secular State.” The verses were removed from the CBSE’s academic curriculum for 2022-23, which was announced on Thursday.
The section of the curriculum paper that specifies the Social Science course material for Class 10 notes that “excluding picture on page 46, 48, 49,” the segment on religion, communalism, and politics will continue to be part of the course content.
Two posters and a political caricature are the pictures in question.
NGO ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy), whose co-founders include social activists Shabnam Hashmi and Harsh Mander, produced one of the posters, which used Faiz’s poetry.
The only graphics that were left out of the course were the two posters and the cartoon. The CBSE did not answer to The Indian Express’s inquiries on the reasons for the exclusion.
According to major literary web portal Rekhta, Faiz penned the poem from which these words were extracted while being transported in chains from a jail in Lahore to a dentist’s clinic in a tonga through familiar alleyways.
The Voluntary Health Association of India, which styles itself as a federation of 27 state organisations, released the second poster, which included portions from the other Faiz poem. According to Rekhta, Faiz wrote this poem after visiting Dhaka in 1974.
The Times of India published a cartoon by Ajith Ninan depicting an empty chair covered with religious symbols. “This chair is for the CM-designate to establish his secular credentials…,” the caption reads. There’s going to be a lot of rocking!”
Following the reform of the National Curriculum Framework in 2005, a group lead by the late Prof Hari Vasudevan of the University of Calcutta’s Department of History prepared the textbook.
Chapters on “democracy and diversity,” which introduce students to the concept of social divisions and inequalities along the lines of race and caste around the world, including in India; “popular struggle and movements,” with a focus on Nepal and Bolivia; and “challenges to democracy,” which focus on reforming democratic politics, have also been removed from the course content in the book.
According to the “How to Use This Book” section, graphics, collages, pictures, posters, and a wide range of political cartoons make up a significant amount of the book.
“These graphics give some visual comfort as well as some amusement. You should not, however, simply’see’ these photos and then switch the page. The significance of these photos must be’read’ by you. Politics is frequently carried out through visuals rather than words. It claims that “the descriptions and questions that frequently accompany these photos assist you in reading these visuals.”
Furthermore, the History course curriculum for Class 11 lacks a chapter on “Central Islamic Lands.” According to the curriculum for 2021-22, it is about the establishment of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian areas and their economic and social ramifications.
“Impact of globalisation on agriculture” from a chapter on Food Security in the Class 10 curriculum is one of the other Social Science themes that has been eliminated this time. The class 12 Political Science curriculum no longer includes a chapter on the “Cold War Era and Non-Aligned Movement.”
Apart from that, the Class 11 curriculum no longer includes a unit on mathematical reasoning. In addition, composite functions, inverse functions, fundamental features of inverse trigonometric functions, mathematical formulation of linear programming issues, and binomial probability distribution have been excluded.
As part of its attempt to rationalise the syllabus, the CBSE announced that chapters on federalism, citizenship, nationalism, and secularism in the Class 11 Political Science textbook will not be considered while evaluating students, prompting a tremendous outrage. The themes were revived in the 2021-22 academic year and are currently part of the curriculum.
The NCERT chose to delete six cartoons from Political Science textbooks for classes 9, 10, 11, and 12 due to outrage about “anti-political class” content. The NCERT initiated a fresh set of improvements to political commentary in 2018, including changes to cartoon captions.
