India vs Bharat in NCERT: Opposition digs striking jibe calling it “political gimmick”

Opposition parties, especially those from the southern states, reacted sharply to the recommendation made by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) panel of social sciences that India be renamed as “Bharat” in school textbooks. They called the proposal a “political gimmick” and an attempt to distort history.

Reaction from NCERT

Undoubtedly, the NCERT has not yet embraced the idea; on Wednesday, it stated that it was “premature to comment” at this time as the creation of the new syllabus and books “were in the process,” which is why different curricular area groups of domain experts had been informed.

India vs. Bharat in NCERT causing tussle

The action was an election ploy, according to Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, who also claimed that the BJP had no genuine commitment to “Bharat or India.” “You can see how they are distorting history through textbooks, syllabus… But for us, India and Bharat are equal. They are purposefully doing this for the elections,” he said.

The Reserve Bank of India, the Indian Administrative Service, and the “Republic of India” are among the organizations for which the term “Indian” is used in Karnataka, according to DK Shivakumar, the deputy chief minister. “Who is saying that we are not Bharatiyas, but we are also proud Indians. I think whatever stand they have taken is anti-people, anti-India and anti-Bharat,” Shivakumar said.

According to Shivakumar, “they would continue with whatever was there earlier” in Karnataka, where the government is developing a state education policy as opposed to the nationally developed one. “We will discuss in the cabinet. We will not change anything,” Shivakumar said.

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“This is out of fear…” states the opposition

TKS Elangovan, the leader of the DMK, stated that the opposition’s coalition was dubbed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive coalition (INDIA), which is why the government is attempting to rename the organization. “This is out of fear. How can NCERT do this without amending the constitution?” he said.

In Kerala, CPM state secretary MV Govindan said the move is part of the BJP’s Hindutva project. “They don’t want people to study the history of the Mughals or the assassination of Gandhi,” he said.

Dasoju Sravan, a spokesman for the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, claimed that the Narendra Modi government was merely trying to hide its mistakes by changing the name of the nation from India to Bharat in the NCERT textbooks.

“Narendra Modi was made as the Prime Minister of India to change the fate of people, but having failed to do so he’s indulging in changing names,” Sravan said.

Bratya Basu, the Bengal minister of education, stated that the “mythology” the BJP spreads cannot be taught in school. “The name India has its origin in real history. It is apparent that the BJP is so scared of the INDIA coalition that it wants to remove the name even from textbooks,” he said.