Expose the Fascist Agenda Behind the Project of “Rationalisation of Syllabus” – AIRSO Central Committee

Expose the Fascist Agenda Behind the Project of “Rationalisation of Syllabus”

Removal of Periodic Table and Democracy from the NCERT Syllabus an Open Assault on the Scientific, Secular and Democratic Education

Recently, NCERT has amended the 10th Class Syllabus as part of the process of “Rationalisation of Syllabus”. From the Science textbook, the full Chapter on “Periodic Classification of Elements”. The renaming of the Chapter on “Heredity and Evolution” as “Heredity” by removing the whole portion of evolution was already in controversy for some time. Union Ministers like Satyapal Singh has also come forward to reject the theory of evolution as unscientific. Along with that chapters on “Sustainable Management of Natural Resources” and “Sources of Energy” are also removed.

At the same time, we can see that in the “Democratic Politics-II”, three chapters, namely, “Democracy and Diversity”, “Popular Struggles and Movement”, “Challenges to Democracy”, a page in the chapter “Political Parties” on “A Moral Force in Politics” and some images on Communalism with some quotes by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, were removed from the political science syllabus. The deletion of portions on Mughal and Medieval Period, Gujarat Riots etc from the History textbook were also vehemently opposed by students and teachers.

NCERT has set some criteria on identifying the parts of the syllabus to be removed like overlapping of contents, difficulty level, irrelevance in the current context, etc. This “irrelevance in the current context”, if viewed in the current context, can be understood as anything incoherent with the fascist world outlook. That’s why the removal of the syllabus is an open manifestation of the intolerance of these forces towards scientific temper, democracy, secularism and people’s resistance.

The fascist project of rediscovering science, history and politics from a hindutva perspective has become the most important agenda of RSS Neo-fascist forces, whose purpose is to serve the interests of corporate finance capital. That’s why this move must also be seen as part of an agenda to intensify the assault by finance capital forces by continuing the enslavement of students with a syllabus that divert the discourse from people’s movements, “US Hegemony in World Politics”, Climate change and ultimately, from a scientific world outlook. For this, these forces have allied all reactionary forces and ideologies that oppressed and still continue to oppress people on the basis of caste, religion, gender, language, ethnicity etc. The new change in syllabus is a deliberate method to disguise these different forms of oppressions from the mainstream.

AIRSO condemns this fascist anti-student move by the NCERT for the purpose of implementation of the RSS agenda through the education system. We are also witnessing a condition in which, the BJP government is unleashing an unprecedented assault on the education system and the students through the implementation of the NEP2020, for spearheading the corporatisation and saffronisation of the education system. These changes in syllabus can also be seen as a part of NEP implementation and its core ideas, which reflect a brahmanical hindutva agenda. AIRSO appeals to all progressive, democratic and secular forces to vehemently oppose these anti-student moves by the fascist government.

AIRSO Central Committee