India News | CBSE: BJP Wants to Do Away with Secularism, Says NCP
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The NCP on Wednesday attacked the CBSE's move to drop chapters relating to secularism, citizenship, demonetisation among others from the syllabus to reduce the course load for students amid the COVID-19 crisis, saying the ruling BJP wants to do away with democracy and secularism.
Mumbai, Jul 8 (PTI) The NCP on Wednesday attacked the CBSE's move to drop chapters relating to secularism, citizenship, demonetisation among others from the syllabus to reduce the course load for students amid the COVID-19 crisis, saying the ruling BJP wants to do away with democracy and secularism.
NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said the saffron party might even "rewrite history" in future.
"The BJP government has scrapped chapters on secularism, nationalism, democracy, diversity, etc. from the CBSE syllabus.
"The BJP's agenda is very clear, they want to do away with democracy and secularism, hence the best way is not to teach it to the young. In the days to come, the BJP may even rewrite history in a different way and add it to the syllabus," said Tapase.
Earlier in the day, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) notified the new syllabus for classes 9 to 12 for the 2020-21 academic session after rationalising up to 30 per cent of the curriculum.
According to the updated curriculum, the chapters deleted from the Class 10 syllabus are those dealing with democracy and diversity, gender, religion and caste, popular struggles and movement and challenges to democracy.
For Class 11, the deleted portions include the chapters on federalism, citizenship, nationalism, secularism and growth of local governments in India.
Similarly, Class 12 students will not be required to study the chapters on India's relations with its neighbours -- Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, the changing nature of India's economic development, social movements in India and demonetisation, among others.
As its order caused a row, the CBSE has claimed that the reduction in syllabus is being interpreted "differently" and that the move is only a one-time measure for the 2020-21 academic session in view of the COVID-19 situation.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)