NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan Thursday justified the inclusion of a chapter on the 1975-77 Emergency in the NCERT class IX social science textbook, saying future generations must know the “dark deeds” of that period.Speaking in Chandigarh on the inclusion of the Emergency section, Pradhan asserted, “… NCERT has done the right thing. Future generations should know and understand the dark deeds of the Emergency so that such a situation does not arise again…”The inclusion of Emergency was exclusively reported by TOI on Wednesday in the social science textbook ‘Understanding Society: India and Beyond’. The section places the 1975-77 period among the major challenges faced by the Indian democracy, referring to the suspension of fundamental rights, press censorship and arrests of opposition leaders during the Indira Gandhi-led Congress govt.The council, meanwhile, issued a separate clarification rejecting allegations of religious and dietary bias in its class VI Kannada language (R3 under the three-language policy) textbook, titled “Krishna”. The NCERT said that the title “Krishna” referred to the Krishna river, not a religious figure. “NCERT has named its language textbooks, after rivers of India,” it said. It added that the Hindi textbook was named “Ganga”, English “Kaveri”, Urdu “Jamuna”(Yamuna), and Kannada “Krishna”, after one of Karnataka’s major rivers.On allegations that the book promoted vegetarianism, NCERT said a balanced diet was covered in chapter 6 and under a separate heading, “Balanced Diet”, on page 63. It said the illustrative image on the page included both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items, and that the chapter linked healthy food with India’s food diversity.A day after TOI first reported that NCERT had introduced the 1975-77 Emergency in the Class 9 social science textbook, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday backed the move, saying future generations must know the “dark deeds” of that period.
