The Central Board of School education has removed two poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz from its curriculum.
CBSE students for more than a decade read these translated excerpts from two poems in Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the “Religion, Communalism and Politics — Communalism, Secular State” section of NCERT’s Class 10 textbook “Democratic Politics II”. The verses have been excluded from CBSE’s 2022-23 academic curriculum, which was released on Thursday, Indian Express reported.
One of the poems (Aaj Bazar mai pa ba Jalaun Chalo) was written in 1959 when he (Faiz) was imprisoned under Ayub Khan’s martial law. He was taken to the Lahore fort’s torture cell passing through the streets of Lahore in a horse-driven cart with his fetters on.
The CBSE has also dropped from the chapters on “democracy and diversity”, which introduced students to the social divisions and inequalities along the lines of race and caste across the world, including in India. The other chapters that have been omitted from the curriculum are “popular struggle and movements” with a focus on Nepal and Bolivia; and, “challenges to democracy” on reforming democratic politics, as per the report.
A chapter on “Central Islamic Lands” has also gone missing from the History course content for Class 11. The chapter dealt with the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories and its implications for the economy and society, according to the curriculum for 2021-22.
Among other Social Science themes to have faced the axe this time include the “impact of globalization on agriculture”. A chapter on “Cold war era and Non-aligned Movement” has been dropped from the Class 12 Political Science curriculum.