Shillong, April 13: A section on Jammu and Kashmir’s 1947 conditional accession to the Union of India was deleted by the authors of the NCERT political science textbook for class 11.
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.
The Central Government abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019, and the erstwhile state of J&K was divided into two Union Territories – Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir.
NCERT removes Maulana Azad’s reference
A reference of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was likewise removed by the textbook’s authors from the first chapter.
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.”
A prominent member of the Indian National Congress, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad served as Congress President in 1923 and 1940.