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New Delhi: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was India’s first Education Minister, and it is unfortunate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government through the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is erasing his name from our education system.
In the old Class 11 NCERT political science textbook, a paragraph in the first chapter says, “The Constituent Assembly had eight major Committees on different subjects. Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad or Ambedkar chaired these Committees”.
But in the new version of the same textbook, the name of Maulana Azad has been omitted and the same sentence now reads as “Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or B.R. Ambedkar chaired these committees.”
It must also be noted that last year, the Minority Affairs Ministry discontinued the Maulana Azad Fellowship, which was started in 2009 and it provided financial help to students from six notified minorities for a period of five years.
The NCERT is a part of the government of India and the government at the centre is currently led by the BJP and therefore looking at all this, a question comes to mind, “Is the BJP trying to erase the name of India’s First Education Minister because of his Religion? There appears no other reason why they would do this to our first education minister of independent India and one of our freedom fighters.
The NCERT must clarify and answer the citizens of India why they have deleted the name of Maulana Azad in the new textbook when it was clearly mentioned in the old Class 11 NCERT political science textbook.
