NCERT working as RSS arm assaulting constitution: Jairam Ramesh

NCERT working as RSS arm assaulting constitution: Amid the row over revision of NCERT textbooks, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday alleged that the institution has been functioning as an RSS affiliate since 2014 and is mounting an assault on the Constitution.

NCERT working as RSS arm assaulting constitution: Jairam Ramesh

In a post on X, Ramesh said the National Testing Agency has blamed the NCERT for the ‘grace marks’ fiasco in NEET 2024.

That is only drawing attention away from the NTA’s own abject failures, he alleged.

“However it is true that the NCERT is no longer a professional institution.

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It has just been revealed that its revised Class XI political science textbook criticises the idea of secularism as well as what it considers policies of political parties in this regard.

“NCERT’s objective is to produce textbooks, not political pamphlets and propaganda,” the Congress leader said.

NCERT is mounting an assault on our country’s Constitution in whose Preamble secularism features explicitly as a foundational pillar of the Indian republic. Various Supreme Court judgments have held secularism to be an essential part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” he said.

Ramesh said that the NCERT needs to remind itself that it is the National Council for Educational Research and Training, “not the Nagpur or Narendra Council for Educational Research and Training.All of its textbooks are now of dubious quality vastly different from those that shaped me in school,” the Congress general secretary alleged.

TMC leader Saket Gokhale also hit out at the NCERT, saying, “Shameless NDA 1.0 Government” is hiding “inconvenient facts” from students.

.”By this logic, why teach kids about other ‘violent depressing things’ like the World War?” he said.

“Are BJP and Modi ashamed of their history as criminals and rioters? Why hide the truth from students?” Gokhale asked.

Rejecting accusations of saffronisation of school curriculum, the NCERT director has said that references to Gujarat riots and Babri masjid demolition were modified in school textbooks because teaching about riots can create violent and depressed citizens.

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In an interaction with PTI editors, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said the tweaks in textbooks are part of the annual revision and should not be a subject of hue and cry.

Saklani said, “Why should we teach about riots in school textbooks? We want to create positive citizens not violent and depressed individuals.

Organisations which came together included Students’ Federation of India, Democratic Youth Federation of India, Vidyarthi Jana Samithi, Yuva Jana Shakti, among others.

In a resolution passed by them, the leaders said the other demands are: a public apology by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, abolition of NTA, decentralisation of NEET and to allow States to conduct the entrance tests, and transparency and justice for the affected students.

The collective also gave a call for a students’ rally on Tuesday, to protest irregularities in NEET (UG) and on other demands raised by them.

The rally is scheduled to start at Himayathnagar at 10 a.m. and proceed till the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar circle via Liberty junction.

“Education was the only treasure that cannot be stolen, but BJP proved it otherwise,” NSUI’s Chandana Reddy said.