Breach of contract: historians

By The Hindu

NEW DELHI, DEC. 1. The debate on communalisation of education apart, the deletion of portions from four history textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) also amounts to a breach of contract as per which ``no adaptation or modification of the original text can be made without the approval of the author''. And, the forbidding of discussion on the deleted portions is a violation of the fundamental right to speech and expression.

This was stated here today by the authors of the textbooks that have had portions deleted, by the Central Board of Secondary Education as per a notification issued by the NCERT on a diktat of the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi.

Addressing a press conference organised by SAHMAT, the eminent historian and author of the Ancient India text for Class VI, Prof. Romila Thapar, said the deletion is a ``contravention of the agreement'' between the authors and the NCERT. ``Earlier, whenever any change was proposed, it would be sent to the authors - who in discussion with the editorial board - would decide whether or not to accept them.''

Disputing the saffron brigade's bid to describe the ongoing debate on the deletions as a confrontation between leftist and rightist historians, Prof. Thapar said the ``confrontation'' was between professional historians and politicians/administrators who did not respect the fact that it was the prerogative of the professional historian to decide the content of a book.

``Extremely disturbed'' by the forbidding of discussion of the deleted portions in the classroom, Prof. Thapar said this diktat went against the fundamental right to speech and expression enjoyed by every citizen of the country. ``The deletions also raise the issue of whether or not we should be straight forward with our children and tell them that society was different in the past and changes have taken place.''

On the inclusion of various explanations given for the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur in his Class XI book on Medieval India, the author, Prof. Satish Chandra, said: ``I was trying to show that his execution was not just a religious issue, but also had a socio-economic perspective. Different viewpoints are included in textbooks to train children to think critically.''

Given the fact that his book would any way be out of the list of recommended texts from the coming academic session, Prof. R. S. Sharma ruled out his going to court to challenge the NCERT's decision to delete as many as seven sections from his book on Ancient India for Class XI.

In the opinion of NCERT's former head of the Department of Education in Social Sciences and the Humanities, Prof. Arjun Dev, the HRD Ministry and the NCERT were only testing the waters with these deletions.