NCERT textbook row: chapter on farmers' movement deleted, BKU condemns the move

In the latest row of NCERT's rationalisation process, the council has removed a chapter on the popular movement of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU).

Condemning the move, the BKU said it would meet the Centre over the issue.

Chapter titled ‘Rise of Popular Movements’, which elaborated on the rise of the BKU in the late 1980s and its disciplined agitation of 1988 in New Delhi, has been deleted from the Class XII political science textbook.

One of the deleted lines include, “the BKU was one of the leading organisations in the farmers’ movement of the 1980s”.

Mahendra Singh Tikait, the father of popular farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, had founded the BKU.

Rakesh Tikait to the Tribune said, "We will meet the central government over the issue. The government wants to remove factual history and replace it with their own narrative. We won’t let that happen."

Tikait further said he had already written to the Union Education Minister and requested him to re-introduce the deleted contents of the BKU in the textbooks.

Though the NCERT claimed that contents were removed last year during the rationalisation of textbooks, students received new textbooks this academic session.

The NCERT recently has also dropped certain portions on Mahatma Gandhi and how his pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity "provoked Hindu extremists" from its class 12 history textbook.

Apart from Gandhi assassination's the deleted portion also include Mughals history, 2002 Gujrat riots and Maulana Azad's references.