NCERT chief: Why teach about riots and demolitions?

Rejecting accusations of saffronisation of school curriculum, NCERT's 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."

In an interaction with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters here on Saturday, NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said the tweaks in textbooks are part of annual revision.

On references to Gujarat riots or Babri masjid being tweaked in NCERT textbooks, Saklani said, "Why should we teach about riots in school textbooks? We want to create positive citizens not violent and depressed individuals".

"Should we teach our students in a manner that they become offensive, create hatred in society or become victim of hatred? Is that education's purpose? Should we teach about riots to such young children when they grow up, they can learn about it but why school textbooks? Let them understand what happened and why it happened when they grow up. The hue and cry about the changes is irrelevant," he said.

Saklani's comments come even as new textbooks have hit the market with several deletions and changes. The revised Class 12 political science textbook, does not mention the Babri masjid demolition, but refers to it as a "three-domed structure".

It has pruned the Ayodhya section from four to two pages, deleting details from the earlier version.