NHRC issues notice to Ministry of HRD and NCERT on revision of textbooks for children

On basis of a petition received by the National Human Rights Commission from some educationist alleging that the revision of text books for children’s education was likely to adversely affect their development and might distort personality and their human development, the Commission has issued notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India and National Council of Education, Research and Training, New Delhi.

The Commission has held - ‘No doubt formulation of policies is within the domain of government. However, the constitutional philosophy in the Preamble, the fundamental guarantees and the mandate of regulation of policy formulation by the Directive Principle of State Policy has to be respected and when it is alleged that the policy or state action would adversely affect the development of children it becomes a human rights issue requiring examination by the NHRC, in exercise of its statutory functions’.

The Commission had received a complaint on 8 January 2002 from educationist asking the Commission to look into printing of history textbooks, which they felt were ‘undemocratic, non-secular’. In their opinion, the old textbooks should be continued for 2002 till historical reality and facts were brought into rewriting of history textbooks. They also urged the Commission to ensure that the history textbook writings were a truly transparent, professional and democratic process highlighting the secular, democratic, pluralistic character of India for which the freedom fighters had fought and died for.

While considering the complaint on 9 January 2002, the Commission had held that the right to development was the most basic right of every child, duly recognized by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) – to which India is a party, and this has been reiterated in the World Conference at Vienna (1993). Article 39 (f) incorporated the rights to development as a Directive Principle of State Policy. Education was the most effective tool and medium for human development. Right to Education has been judicially construed to fall within the guarantee of right to life in article 21 and now it was being expressly included in Part III of the Constitution as a fundamental right.

Freedom of information is the essence of democracy. Education helps to develop that trait. It must, therefore, be also a medium of exposure to different points of views based on the depiction of established facts.

It is the obligation of the school to disseminate all necessary information children requires facilitating them in making informed choices about their own lives. The school is the agent for translating the child’s right to development into informed action.

Thus, the Commission feels that the right to education of every child is clearly a human right and its proper direction a human rights issue. Hence, it has hence issued notice to the Ministry of HRD and NCERT for reply within 8 weeks