Congress leaders accepted Partition as only way forward: New NCERT book, Pg12

Key Highlights:

• New NCERT Class 8 social science textbook states Congress leaders accepted Partition as the only way forward.
• The textbook highlights multiple factors leading to Britain's exit from India, including Gandhi's non-violence, popular uprisings, and Britain's diminished status after World War II.
• The book includes a section on Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ‘Bande Mataram’, and asks students to interpret its meaning.
• The textbook mentions that the British government has not apologized for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, only describing it as a ‘deeply shameful event’.
• The new book details the violence during the Muslim League’s ‘Direct Action Day’ in 1946 in Calcutta.
• The book features a section on the ‘Paika Sangram’, the rebellion of Odisha’s peasant militia against the British in the 1800s.

Detailed Insights:

• The new NCERT textbook highlights that while Mahatma Gandhi and most Congress leaders initially opposed the idea of Partition, they eventually accepted it as the only solution.
• Historians now recognize multiple factors contributed to Britain's exit, including popular uprisings, revolutionary attempts, and mutinies in the Royal Indian Air Force and Navy, moving beyond the earlier view that solely credited Gandhi and the Congress.
• The textbook emphasizes the brutal communal violence during the Direct Action Day in Calcutta, leading to thousands of deaths and displacement, making peaceful coexistence seem impossible and Partition unavoidable.
• The inclusion of the Paika Sangram addresses previous criticisms of NCERT for omitting uprisings against the British in certain regions, reflecting a more comprehensive view of India's struggle for independence.
• The new textbooks are developed in line with the National Education Policy 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Partition: The division of British India in 1947 into India and Pakistan.
• Decolonization: The process by which colonies become independent from the colonizing nation.
• Communal Violence: Violence spurred by conflict between different religious communities.