The Congress on Wednesday accused the government of distorting history and “whitewashing with a vengeance” after several contents from NCERT textbooks, including Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and subsequent ban on RSS for sometime, was dropped.
Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” and “Organisations like RSS were banned for some time” are among the texts missing from the class 12 political science textbook for the new academic session.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the BJP and in a tweet wrote, “You can (make) changes in Textbooks but you cannot change the history of the country. This is an attempt by the BJP-RSS, they can try as much as they want, but they cannot erase history.”
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, tagging a report by The Indian Express, said, it is “Whitewashing with a vengeance.”
Tagging another report which claimed that chapters related to the Mughals and Dalit writers have also been axed from the textbooks, he said, “This reveals the ruling regime’s TRUE mindset. After all, the RSS had not only attacked Gandhi but had been bitterly opposed to Dr Ambedkar as well.”
Speaking at a press conference, Congress leader Manish Tewari said that re-writing history has been an “ongoing endeavour” with the RSS and BJP, and this was not the first time such a thing happened.
“I recall that in the first and second NDA governments in 1998-99, this particular project was being unveiled. The only thing I would like to say is that you can distort history but you cannot erase it,” he said, adding, “Truth has a way of manifesting itself. History bears testimony to the fact that those who have tried to re-write history have been consigned to the “dustbin of history.”
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate also attacked the BJP over the issue, alleging that they want to erase the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi by writing a “new history”. “But Prime Minister Modi, history is not changed it is made by strong resolve,” she said, reported PTI.