Fake News on Internet Is Helping Hindutva’s Retelling of History – By Himanshi Dahiya
In January 2021, an RTI response received from the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) – an autonomous body under the government of India – by one Shivank Varma, made it to news headlines and primetime television debates.
The query was about a paragraph in a Class 12 history textbook which mentioned that Mughal rulers gave grants to repair temples destroyed during war and how many such temples were repaired.
But the response that no such information is “available in the files of the department” triggered a massive debate on the authenticity of textbooks and our education system’s whitewashing of the “real history” of India. The Quint spoke to several RTI experts and historians who…. told us that the NCERT textbook controversy is not an isolated case. Different people at different times in different societies have attempted to distort history….
