In 2018, the Minister of State for Human Resource Development in India, Satya Pal Singh, claimed that Indians were descendants of Hindu sages rather than primates, and declared Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to be scientifically incorrect.
By the 2021-2022 academic year, Darwin's theory was removed from the examination syllabus for students in Class 9 and Class 10, and by 2022-2023, evolution was removed from school textbooks altogether, according to education experts, Al Jazeera reported. This means that unless students opt for biology in Class 11 and Class 12, they will not learn about Darwin or his theory.
Critics argue that the Indian government is harming the country's ethos by manipulating the school curriculum, with the changes to textbooks being implemented by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), a state-run organisation under the federal education ministry.
The CBSE, which has more than 24,000 affiliated schools in India and 240 affiliated schools in 26 other countries, as well as at least 19 school boards in 14 Indian states, use NCERT books as part of their curriculum.
The Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which serves as their ideological mentor, have been pushing for a revision of India's textbooks. This is to further their political agenda of replacing a constitutionally secular India with an ethnic Hindu state.
A campaign involves denying the historical reality of Muslim rule over the Indian subcontinent for centuries and portraying an alternative history of supposed Hindu persecution under Muslim rulers.
The removal of references to the Mughals, who governed the subcontinent from the 16th to the 19th century, from history textbooks is also part of this campaign.
The NCERT textbooks for Grades 11 and 12 in political science have removed a reference to a temporary ban on the RSS following the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist with ties to the RSS.
Gandhi, also known as "Mahatma" (noble soul), is revered as the Father of the Nation. Additionally, the NCERT has removed references to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a Muslim freedom fighter who served as India's first education minister and was a member of the constituent assembly that drafted the country's constitution.
The Indian Express newspaper conducted an investigation and found that all social science textbooks have also removed references to the 2002 riots in Gujarat, where nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
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