According to a parliamentary committee's recommendations to the government, the history books should be updated on a regular basis and should include post-Independence history. "Lives of unknown men and women who have positively influenced Indian history should be highlighted," mentioned by the parliamentary panel.
In its report titled "Reforms in context and design of school textbooks," the parliamentary standing committee on education, women, children, youth, and sports, chaired by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, made the proposal. The bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
"Our history textbooks should be updated regularly and should include information from after 1947," it said. Furthermore, the option of conducting periodic reviews of the National Curricular Framework should be preserved, it added
"NCERT should relook at the rules for developing history textbooks so that equal weight and importance is given to the various eras, periods, and events," the committee said.
The panel also advised that other historical Indian empires be taught across the country as they have been under-represented till now, according to the panel.
"The history kids are learning that it's almost from other countries, and if they have any Indian material, it's from a specific period of nationalism. It doesn't celebrate the achievements of other communities or the lives of people who have made significant contributions to Indian history, "said Harish Chauhan, a history teacher.
Atharv Malu, a class 10th student, stated, "We have a lot of international history in our texts such as European history , there are some chapters like Nationalism in India, which focuses primarily on the Gandhian era. We learned a lot about Mughal history in previous grades, but what good is knowing world history if you don't know Indian history?"
According to the report, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books do not adequately cover some of the great Indian empires, such as Vikramaditya's, the Cholas, the Chalukyas, Vijaynagar, Gondwana, or Travancore and the Ahoms of the Northeast.
