NEW DELHI: The Indian History Congress (IHC) has found fault with the new history curriculum drafted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). It, however, appreciated the efforts to "detoxify" the "saffronised" textbooks published during the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government.

The IHC, in a resolution adopted at its recent 66th annual session at Visva Bharati in West Bengal, noted: "The official declarations that the substance of history taught at schools needs to be changed and the space devoted to it reduced so that the study of the more serious elements of history may be curtailed or replaced by `interesting' but inconsequential `facts' are a cause of grave disquiet."

According to the resolution, "Social sciences constitute important branches of knowledge, and these should not be trivialised in the name of reducing the `information burden' on children." Instead, it noted: "History teaching should be so designed as to promote an informed and rational attitude towards one's past among school children."

Further, in the historian's view, it would be a tragedy if school textbooks of a lightweight character were to deprive the school children of any real sense of the fundamental historical processes such as social and economic changes, the impact of colonialism and the nature of the national movement.

The IHC also adopted a resolution on academic freedom; expressing concern over the manner in which political agitations are organised and government interventions "thereby obtained" to modify or delete historical facts stated in textbooks.

Referring to the demonstrations organised in Tamil Nadu for deleting a statement about Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in N.K. Mangala Murugesan's textbook on history and subsequent reports of the State Government ordering its deletion, the IHC deplored "all such attempts at interference with freedom of academic debate and research."

Another resolution pertained to the Government's refusal to institute a national celebration in memory of Mughal Emperor Akbar on the fourth centenary of his death. Questioning the Government's decision not to commemorate the occasion on the premise that Akbar did not come within the realm of the scheme for commemorating nationally important persons and events, the IHC reiterated its demand for remembering the emperor with a national celebration.

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