ICHR working on dissemination of new Indian history

A day after Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that students will be taught the ‘corrected’ version of Indian history under the National Education Policy (NEP) from Vasant Panchami next year, government officials said that they are working on a book to bring out the “comprehensive history” of India from vernacular sources, as well as a project with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to publicise India’s contribution to science and technology.

On Tuesday, while speaking at a function organised by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) with an RSS-affiliate Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana at Bihar’s Sasaram district, Pradhan had said that the Centre is working on new books which will bring out the true picture of India to the world.

ICHR member secretary Umesh Ashok Kadam said that they are working on a slew of initiatives in line with Pradhan’s announcement. And, in addition to the book and the project with ISRO, also in the offing is a book on India’s vibrant economic history.

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“India’s contribution to the world economy has been 34 per cent and this is something that children in our schools, colleges and universities need to be taught,” Kadam said. “These books will add a new dimension to our knowledge system, one that is neither Eurocentric, nor influenced by Mughal history.”

These books, Kadam added, will be available by the end of March next year. In November this year, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the ICHR held lectures across 45 central universities on topics that would bring out India’s contribution across various fields. Titled “India: The Mother of Democracy” or “Bharat: Loktantra ki Janani”, the lectures were on topics such as the archeological evidence of democratic roots in India, the roots of India’s ‘loktantrik-parampara’ (democratic traditions) in the Rigveda, the epigraphical sources of Indian democracy, etc. During this time, the ICHR also started working on a book Bharat: Loktantra Ki Janani, a compilation of 30 chapters by 30 authors.

UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said that our history has been ignored by our own people with vested interests. “The real contributions of India to the world should be based on facts, but no one has been able to bring out these facts. For instance, it is widely believed that the British gave us the concept of democracy. But our lecture series with ICHR has shown how democracy has deep roots in India. We need to take a relook at our own history, as well as other areas,” Kumar said.