CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has said that Kerala would reject the National Council for Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) proposal to supplant India with Bharat in the social sciences curriculum for schools.

CPI(M) State Secretary M. V. Govindan told reporters in New Delhi that schools following the State syllabus would resist the NCERT’s move to inject “science, fact and history-denying Sangh Parivar rendition of India’s past into younger generations.

“Kerala school textbooks will cite the country’s name as India as articulated in Article I of the Constitution. They will dwell on subjects abandoned by the Sangh Parivar-led Central government, including Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Mughal empire, and the life, times and assassination of Mahatma Gandhi”, Mr. Govindan said.

Mr. Govindan said the formation of the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was the immediate provocation for the BJP’s move to supplant India with Bharat in school textbooks, official communication and public fora.

He said the Centre had suspiciously flip-flopped on its recent commitment to the Supreme Court that no circumstance warranted changing India’s official name to Bharat.

The CPI(M) and Congress in Kerala also found themselves on the same side of the India-Bharat debate.

On Wednesday, Congress Working Committee (CWC) member K.C. Venugopal objected to rejecting India for Bharat in school textbooks.

“For Congress, both names carry equal weight. However, one should not be at the cost of the other. The BJP is attempting to distort India’s history to suit its political ends”, he said.

The CPI(M) has also found a common cause with the Congress and the DMK governments in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Both administrations have objected to the NCERT proposal. (Education is a subject in the concurrent list, allowing States to accept or reject NCERT proposals.)

C. I. Isaac, a retired history teacher and Padma Shri awardee who heads the NCERT panel for curriculum change, told a news channel in Dubai that it had not rejected the name India.

“Instead, the panel has proposed to make it statutory to teach Bharath in school curriculum. It is to instil self-respect in students and not to compel them to stop using the term India when referring to the country. The panel has also proposed displaying a framed copy of the constitution preamble in classrooms prominently”, Mr. Isaac said.

Meanwhile, the BJP in Kerala has encouraged the use of Bharat because it was “an emphatic rejection of the country’s colonial past”. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had recently urged citizens to use Bharat instead of India.

New Delhi:

At every election rally, Congress leaders from party chief Mallikarjung Kharge to Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have been promising a state-wide caste survey if they come to power.

The sudden fondness for caste survey is emerging as a key issue in both state and general elections expected in the next few months.

Bihar took the lead in publishing its caste survey data. Rahul Gandhi made it an election issue and highlighted it as a major talking point in the Karnataka election. This drew a reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which the Congress says strengthened the party’s resolve to work for a caste survey.

Other parties in the newly formed Opposition alliance INDIA have also demanded caste survey.

The Congress Working Committee has never formally endorsed caste survey, though the party’s stand has evolved over the years.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the height of the Mandal agitation during a no-confidence debate in parliament had opposed caste-based reservations. But with the implementation of the Mandal Commission report and various Supreme Court judgments, the party has taken a position and has been endorsing publicly the demand for caste-based reservations and a census with caste enumeration.

Recently, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi posted on X the ramifications of a caste survey, leading to a demand for rights and the possible equivalence to majoritarian rights. This X post was later deleted and attributed to being sent by mistake of a staffer.

The Congress, however, wants to send a message of being united and unequivocally for a caste survey, which can be used as a strong tool to mobilise not only in the Hindi heartland but also in the southern states where Other Backward Classes (OBC) politics is widely prevalent.

The party will discuss the preparations for both state and general elections, the status of alliances and the alleged harassment of Opposition parties by law enforcement agencies, which the Congress says are acting at the behest of the centre.

A view of new Parliament House Complex in New Delhi
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

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Hyderabad:

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has asked party leaders at the CWC meeting to focus on people’s issues and maintain ideological clarity, while cautioning them against “walking into traps of the BJP”.

Addressing a press conference on the second day of deliberations of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), party’s media and publicity department chief Pawan Khera said Rahul Gandhi spoke on Saturday during the first meeting of the reconstituted CWC and called on leaders to heed the voice of ‘Bharat Mata’ to raise people’s issues.

“He (Gandhi) laid specific stress on the need to have ideological clarity. All of us emerged from that hall of the CWC in deep thought with absolute clarity. He warned us against walking into irrelevant traps of the BJP. These are not issues of the common man or woman or to any of us,” Pawan Khera said.

The former Congress chief also asked party leaders to remain focussed on the actual reason why the Congress and each one of them were in politics – to ensure that they heed the voice of ‘Bharat Mata’ and translate that voice into actual issues, and wherever in government, into actual policies, he said.

Rahul Gandhi’s remarks at the CWC come amid a raging row over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s comment on Sanatan Dharma which have been vehemently criticised by the BJP. Some Congress leaders on Saturday called for a cautious approach on the Sanatan Dharma row and stressed that the party should not get drawn into the BJP’s agenda.

Sources said some leaders, including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh, said at the CWC meeting that the party should stay away from such issues and not be drawn into it.

Speaking at the presser, Pawan Khera said, “Rahul ji asked us ‘whether you have clarity on ideology in your mind or not?’. Rahul ji’s words were that Congress is not an organisation-based party, it is a movement which also has an organisation. It is the movement which drives the organisation and not the organisation that drives the movement.”  That is the fundamental difference between the Congress and other parties in India, he added.

“Any movement in Rahul ji’s words can be for three-four months, there is an objective, people walk on that path and others keep joining it. Bharat Jodo Yatra was an effort to unite us with the roots of the movement. That yatra not only helped the party connect with its roots but also the Congress workers and sympathisers realised that this is the way forward for the country,” Pawan Khera said.

The essence of Bharat Jodo Yatra is being translated in guarantees that were seen in Karnataka and will be seen in Telangana, he added.

Pawan Khera also narrated a conversation Rahul Gandhi had with Mallikarjun Kharge earlier which he shared with the CWC on Saturday.

“Yesterday, Rahul Gandhi cited a thought-provoking conversation he had with Mallikarjun Kharge. He asked Kharge ji why he chose the Congress in 1969. Kharge told him that the entire Congress had left Indira Gandhi and joined Cong (O) over reforms undertaken by her. He instinctively thought Congress is the only party that thinks about backward, Dalits and the poor, and was retrospectively proven right,” Pawan Khera said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former president Sonia Gandhi, and party senior leaders being welcomed on their arrival for the newly constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) in Hyderabad on Saturday, September 16, 2023.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

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