Jammu: Authors of NCERT’s revised class 11th political science textbook have dropped a paragraph on Jammu and Kashmir’s conditional accession with the Union of India in 1947.
The older version of the textbook read, “for example, the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union was based on a commitment to safeguard its autonomy under Article 370 of the Constitution.”
But in the 10th chapter of the revised textbook, titled “The Philosophy of the Constitution”, the reference to Jammu and Kashmir’s conditional accession has been deleted by the authors of the textbook.
Article 370 was done away with on August 5, 2019 by the Central Government and the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir with latter with a legislature.
The authors of the revised textbook have also deleted a reference of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad from the first chapter of the book.
The older version of the textbook read, “The Constituent Assembly had eight major Committees on different subjects. Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad or Ambedkar chaired these committees.
These were not men who agreed with each other on many things. Ambedkar had been a bitter critic of the Congress and Gandhi, accusing them of not doing enough for the upliftment of Scheduled Castes. Patel and Nehru disagreed on many issues. Neverthless, they all worked together.”
But the new version of the textbook read, “Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or BR Ambedkar chaired these Committees.”
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a political personality of Indian National Congress who was elected as Congress President in 1923 and 1940.
He was the first Education Minister of independent India. Maulana Azad was posthumously awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’, India’s highest civilian honor, in 1992.
