Set fire to book if facts missing: Congress slams NCERT's Partition module
The module has not gone down well with the Congress.'Is 1938 mentioned or not [in the NCERT module]?' Khera asked, stressing that the year was 'a very significant date' when the Hindu Mahasabha's national conference in Gujarat declared that Hindus and Muslims could not live in one country.'Let us move forward to 1940. Is it there in the module?' he said, pointing out that Jinnah repeated the same idea at the Muslim League's Lahore session. 'It was floated in 1938 by the Hindu Mahasabha, Jinnah repeated it in 1940.'Khera further claimed that in 1942, when Congress leaders resigned from provincial assemblies to join the Quit India movement, 'Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League made alliance regimes in provinces including NWFP, Bengal, Sindh. In the Sindh Assembly, the partition proposal was tabled by Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League. Is it written in the NCERT module?''Set fire to the book if all this is not mentioned in it,' Khera said. 'Partition happened due to the jugalbandi of Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League. If there is a villain in this history, then it is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Generations will not forgive them.'WHAT MODULE SAYSIn a section titled 'culprits of Partition,' the NCERT module states: 'Ultimately, on August 15, 1947, India was divided. But this was not the doing of any one person. There were three elements responsible for the Partition of India: Jinnah, who demanded it; second, the Congress, which accepted it; and third, Mountbatten, who implemented it. But Mountbatten proved to be guilty of a major blunder.'
The text accuses Mountbatten of advancing the transfer of power from June 1948 to August 1947, calling the rushed demarcation of boundaries a 'great act of carelessness.' It says: 'In Punjab, even two days after 15 August 1947, millions of people did not know whether they were in India or in Pakistan.'The module highlights the 1940 Lahore Resolution, where Jinnah declared that Hindus and Muslims belonged to 'two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literatures.' It notes that while Jinnah pushed for Partition, he later admitted: 'I never thought it would happen. I never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime.'advertisementIt quotes Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as saying, 'India had become a battlefield, and it was better to partition the country than to have a civil war.'Mahatma Gandhi's stance is also included: he opposed Partition but 'would not stop Congress from accepting it with violence.' Patel had called it 'bitter medicine,' while Jawaharlal Nehru described it as 'bad' but 'unavoidable.'The material, prepared in separate versions for Classes 6–8 and 9–12, is a supplementary resource outside regular textbooks. It is meant to be used through posters, projects, discussions and debates in English and Hindi.Both versions open with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2021 message announcing Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, quoting his post on X: 'Partition's pains can never be forgotten. Millions of our sisters and brothers were displaced, and many lost their lives due to mindless hate and violence.'The module also notes that Partition turned Kashmir into a new security problem for India, with Pakistan and other countries continuing to use the issue to put pressure on New Delhi.advertisement- Ends
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