In the Indian political history, August 05, 2019 will now forever be remembered as the day which changed the fate of Jammu and Kashmir as the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has now revised a chapter in its Class 12 political science textbook to remove a portion on separatist politics in Jammu and Kashmir and add abrogation of Article 370.
On August 5, 2019, the Government of India revoked the special status granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir through an amendment and also scrapped Article 35 A, and the state was bifurcated into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without a legislature. The bifurcation came into force on October 31, 2019.
The NCERT textbook in which these changes have been made is titled – ‘Politics in India Since Independence. Students who have enrolled in the academic session 2020-21 will be reading this revised textbook.
The chapter no longer has the topic named ‘Separatism and Beyond’. Now, it includes the topic ‘Regional Aspirations’, which talks about abrogation of Article 370.
Further, the NCERT has also removed the old map of Jammu and Kashmir from its Class 12 political science textbook starting this year and replaced it with an updated map of two separate UTs.