NEW DELHI: The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi has criticized the Modi government’s decision to remove references to the Babri Masjid and the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim riots from textbooks, stating that the ruling BJP is manipulating education to suit its ideological agenda.
During a Lok Sabha debate, the AIMIM leader questioned the NCERT’s (National Council of Educational Research and Training) removal of these critical events, asking, “Should our children not learn about the Gujarat pogrom, the massacre of minority Muslims? Why should people not learn from the mistakes of the past?”
Owaisi emphasized that the government’s actions are a deliberate attempt to distort history and conceal the truth about the BJP’s complicity in these events. He pointed out that the NCERT has reduced the section on Ayodhya from four to two pages and removed detailed references to the Babri Masjid, instead referring to it as a “three-domed structure” in the revised Class 12 political science textbook.
Notably, this move by the Indian government is part of a larger pattern of the BJP’s bias against Muslims and their symbols, aimed at erasing their cultural and historical identity. By expunging these references, the government is attempting to whitewash its own role in perpetuating communal violence and bring about a sanitized version of history that serves its political interests.
12 die as heavy rains lash Delhi
Emergency workers rescued nearly 1,000 people who were stranded in different parts of the Himalayas following torrential rainfall in northern India, which caused widespread damage and left at least 12 people dead, officials said.
The Indian capital received intense rainfall, totaling 147 millimeters in eastern parts of the city and its suburbs, the Meteorological Department said.
Local media reported that at least seven people died in Delhi. Three people died, and parts of two bridges were washed away after a cloudburst—a massive amount of rain in a brief period—in Uttarakhand state, officials said. Bad weather was hampering communications in the hilly terrain.
Rescue workers saved over 1,000 people who were stranded in different locations on the Kedarnath route—a trek to a Hindu pilgrimage site—and a patch of the national highway was washed out, district official Saurabh Gaharwar said.
Delhi has experienced a series of extreme weather events in the past few months, from scorching temperatures to floods and rainfall that caused a roof collapse at the city’s airport.
