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NEW DELHI: NCERT has released new special modules on the Partition of India, marking Partition Remembrance Day this month. The material puts major responsibility on the Congress leadership, saying it “accepted the plans of Partition” and “underestimated Jinnah,” while failing to foresee the long-term impact of the division.The revised NCERT textbooks have been triggering controversies, with the Congress accusing the government of saffronisation of the books.
Key extracts from partition modules
- “The Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan were by no means inevitable. Jinnah demanded it; the Congress accepted it; Mountbatten formalised and implemented it.”
- “None of the Indian leaders had experience in running national or even provincial administration, the army, police, etc. Hence, they had no idea of the massive problems that would naturally arise… Otherwise, such haste would not have been made.”
- “Either a divided India or a destroyed India,” — Jinnah’s warning that the module says forced Congress leaders Nehru and Patel to concede.
- “I never thought it would happen. I had never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime.” — Jinnah’s later admission, as cited.
- “Shortsightedness in rulers can become a national catastrophe. Giving concessions to violence to gain peace results in whetting the appetite of violence-prone groups.
Recently, references to the Mughals and Delhi Sultanate were dropped from Class VII content The Class VIII book also described Babur as a “brutal and ruthless conqueror” instead of a romanticised empire builder.The Partition modules are followed by backlash in Assam against another NCERT revision. The newly updated Class 8 history textbook has been criticised for claiming that the Ahoms migrated from Myanmar, a version at odds with historical accounts linking their origins to China.
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