Students' group opposes decision of including Ramayana, Mahabharata in history curriculum

NEW DELHI: The All India Democratic Student Organisation (AIDSO) opposes the introduction of Ramayana and Mahabharata in history syllabus. According to Sourav Ghosh, general secretary of AIDSO, the central government, through inclusion of Ramayana and Mahabharata in NCERT textbooks, is destroying the scientific process of knowing and studying history.

Sourav Ghosh said “The recommendation of the NCERT high-level panel to include the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the history syllabus is part of an ongoing attempt to distort the scientific study of history in our country. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are epics considered as part of the Hindu pantheon. The panel has recommended these texts be included under a new classification of history - ‘India's Classical Period', and the panel has also classified history into four periods: Classical period, Medieval period, British era, and Modern India."

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AIDSO demands that the NCERT decision be overturned and urges everyone to be against such decisions.

According to AIDSO, Ramayana and Mahabharata uphold the moral values and ethics of those times and these values are obsolete in current times. By incorporating these epics into the school curriculum, an attempt is made to present these fictitious works as true historical events to a new generation of students who have not yet developed discriminating abilities. This would surely support the governing dispensation's Hindutva agenda, as well as make unscientific claim that fictitious artefacts like the 'Pushpaka Vimana' were real inventions of ancient India.

According to AIDSO the Indian knowledge system is unscientific, the Vedas are religious text that should not be included in a modern school curriculum. If included, such a curriculum contradicts every ethos of modern, scientific, and secular education.