SIR, Emergency in, 'secularism' out: Changes to Class 9 NCERT book spark row

APolitical row has erupted o'er john major changes to the young societal scientific discipline textbook for Class 9 by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).\ While the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, and the Emergency period 1975-77 are part of the book now, the definition of the word Preamble and words 'secular' and 'secularism' are no more part of the book.The SIR voter roll revision exercise is reportedly defined in the book as an exercise to ensure that no eligible citizen is left out of the voter list and no ineligible person is included. The new book is released under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023.Big praise for ECIThe new NCERT textbook heaps praise on the Election Commission of India (ECI) for conducting impartial polls despite challenges such as fake news, misinformation and intimidation, news agency PTI reported."This exercise ensures the addition of all voters, especially the young voters who have just turned 18 and may be left out due to a lack of awareness of any other reason," reads a section of the textbook titled "Understanding Society: India and Beyond".Heaping praise on the poll panel for the conduct of elections, the new book says: “Despite numerous challenges to conducting free and fair elections, the ECI tries to ensure that elections are carried out impartially at multiple levels”.In contrast with the SIR definition in the new book, the exercise has been key a friction point between the government and the Opposition parties, but continues in 19 states and Union territories. It began from Bihar in June last year and 6 crore names have so far been deleted under the exercise so far.While the Opposition has long criticised the SIR, the NCERT Class 9 book says names are only deleted based on death of the voter, change of residence, duplicate enrolment and if someone is permanently untraceable. "EC gives time to raise claims or objections against the revised electoral roll and settles these claims and objections before publishing the final electoral roll," the book said.What does the new book say on Emergency?The new curriculum for the Class 9 textbook defines Emergency as a period when democratic institutions came under severe strain and citizens' freedoms were curtailed.Emergency was earlier only taught in the Class 12 NCERT textbook. It was introduced in 2007 and continues to be in use. The new Class 9 book on Social Science replaces separate textbooks for history, geography, political science and economics that were in use till the 2025-26 academic session.Also Read: ‘Ugly truth was never hidden’: Yogendra Yadav counters Pradhan, says Emergency was already in school textbooksAs reported by HT earlier, the new book doesn't reproduce the Preamble or explain its terminology, and the words "secular" and "secularism" also do not appear in the volume, nor does the book indicate that these concepts will be taken up in later grades.Political row over new curriculumThe introduction of these topics in the Class 9 NCERT book has sparked a political controversy.Congress MP KC Venugopal on Friday said that the NCERT has become a BJP department for "distorting the history" and "putting venomous" items in students' minds. Speaking to news agency ANI, Venugopal said, “NCERT used to be the most academic body for deciding what to study. Now, this NCERT has become a BJP department for distorting the history and putting venomous items in students' minds... How can you make innocent students fools?”.Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Saugata Roy also echoed a similar sentiment on the inclusion of the SIR chapter. "This feels bad. We made many complaints about the functioning of the Election Commission. The way Special Intensive Revision (SIR) happened this time in West Bengal, 27 lakh voters were denied the right to vote. This was wrong... Including this in the NCERT book is absolutely wrong. We condemn this," he told ANI.Meanwhile, the government has backed the introduction of the Emergency subject in the Class 9 textbook. While Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan says the future generations should understand the "dark deeds of the Emergency", the Congress alleges that the introduction of the subject was driven by "divisive politics" and is an attack on constitutional values. "They are interested only in divisive politics. They are trying to distort the history of India by changing the curriculum and syllabus," Venugopal alleged.(With inputs from PTI, ANI, HT correspondent)