New Delhi: The Parliament’s monsoon session is currently underway, and a heated debate broke out in the Lok Sabha as the opposition accused the ruling dispensation of diluting the NCERT syllabus. The debate took place in the course of deliberations on the supply, with respect to demands for grants, for the Ministry of Education passed through it by a voice vote, without amendment.

The southern’s largest AIMIM MP, Asaduddin Owaisi, was also at the forefront of the protest against the BJP-led central government alleging that they have interfered with the historical text. Therefore, based on the points made above and the views supported by Owaisi, the government was regressive to education, especially for students of the Muslim faith. “The current government’s policies bear a direct correlation with the continued state of education deprivation among Muslims. There is a direct relationship between government apathy and the higher drop-out trends amongst Muslim students as against students of other communities,” Owaisi argued.

Congress MP Mohammad Jawed joined the criticism, asserting that eliminating references to the Mughals from textbooks does not eliminate their influence. “The Mughals ruled India for 330 years; this history cannot be wiped out by simply deleting the names of the Mughals from the text books”, Jawed said. He also said that the BJP is politically exploiting Muslim votes, stating, “If there are no Muslims in this country, the BJP could not have opened its account.” Jawed also blamed the government for the leakage events in recent education examinations and compared it to the leakage problems in the government, stating, “Outside Parliament, test papers are getting leaked and inside Parliament, the roof is leaking.”

Opposition Challenges NEP 2020

Apart from book modification, the Opposition also demanded changes to the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP). Members of the parliament criticized the efficiency and equity of the NEP, being one of the significant educational policies of the current government.

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