NCERT recommendation: Govt's decision is foolish just like how it opposed computer in the past, says AP Abdullakutty 

KOZHIKODE: BJP national vice president AP Abdullakutty has reacted to the Kerala government's rejection of NCERT's recommendation that the name 'India' should be replaced by 'Bharat' in school textbooks. Abdullakutty said that the state government's decision not to cooperate with the syllabus reform was foolish.

"All the national exams are based on the NCERT Plus Two syllabus. Children in Kerala are lagging behind in national competitive exams. The state government's decision is as stupid as it opposed the computer in the past," Abdullakutty said. He was speaking after inaugurating the AWH Institute of Mentally Handicapped Union in Cheruvannur, Feroke.

NCERT's Social Science Committee had recommended that the name 'India' should be replaced by 'Bharat' in school textbooks up to class 12 from next year. Later, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan came out criticising the committee's recommendation. In his Facebook post, Pinarayi Vijayan wrote that the move to replace 'India' with 'Bharat' in textbooks was unacceptable.

'The NCERT committee's recommendation to replace 'India' with 'Bharat' is unacceptable. The Constitution refers to our nation as India and Bharat. The politics behind the move to omit 'India' is as clear as the day. The Sangh Parivar is afraid of the politics of inclusion that the term 'India' represents. The new proposals should be seen as a continuation of the arbitrary exclusion of lessons, including the part on Mughal history and the part on the RSS ban following Gandhi's assassination, from school textbooks,' Pinarayi Vijayan wrote.

Education Minister V Sivankutty also came down heavily on the committee's recommendation. "There is narrow-minded politics in saying that henceforth only the word 'Bharat' should be used in textbooks. An attempt is being made to saffronise history. When a similar move was made earlier at the national level, Kerala had reacted against it. Kerala responded by publishing additional textbooks for History, Economics, Political Science and Sociology textbooks of classes 11 and 12. Kerala is the only state in India that responded academically in this way," Sivankutty said.