‘Modern Indian history should start from 2014’: Kapil Sibal takes a dig at govt over ‘deletions’ from NCERT textbooks

In an apparent swipe at the government over the reported removal of certain references in NCERT’s new Class 12 textbooks, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said that consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, modern Indian history should start from 2014. Sibal’s attack on the government came after The Indian Express reported certain deletions from Class 12 National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) social sciences textbooks. In a tweet, Sibal said, “NCERT textbooks: Effaced: 1) Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu Muslim unity 2) Banning of RSS 3) All references to Gujarat riots 4) Protests that turned into social movements in contemporary India.” “Consistent with Modi ji’s Bharat modern Indian history should start from 2014…,” the former Union minister said. The BJP government came to power in 2014. Earlier, it was reported that Uttar Pradesh government schools will adopt from this academic session the NCERT’s new Class 12 history textbooks in which portions about Mughal courts have been removed. As part of its “syllabus rationalisation” exercise last year, NCERT had dropped certain portions from the syllabus, including lessons on Mughal courts, from its Class 12 textbooks, stating they were “overlapping” and “irrelevant”.