Overview
- The new integrated Class 9 social science textbook, Understanding Society: India and Beyond, surfaced in media reports on Friday, June 26, and includes a chapter calling India’s electoral exercise "unparalleled" and describing the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, as a process to update, verify and correct voter rolls.
- The book explains SIR as adding newly eligible voters and removing names for death, relocation, duplicate enrolment or permanent untraceability, and notes the exercise has led to the reported deletion of nearly 6 crore names as it continued in 19 states and union territories.
- NCERT responded on Saturday, June 27, saying reports that the Constitution’s Preamble was removed are misleading, explaining that the curriculum has been reorganised under the new framework and that the Preamble appears in the opening pages of revised NCERT volumes and in the Class 10 syllabus.
- Opposition leaders condemned the presentation as partisan and accused the revisions of downplaying constitutional terms such as secularism, while Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan defended adding the Emergency chapter as necessary history for future generations.
- The revisions follow the National Education Policy 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023 that integrate disciplines and shift topics across grades, and they are likely to affect how students learn about institutions, voter registration and recent contested electoral practice.