From army's contribution to World Wars to Kargil: India to have 'reader friendly' war history books

Surprise, surprise! We’re getting new text books on all the wars India has been a part of. From our World War I contribution to our wars with Pakistan and China, the Modi government is all set to give them a new, ‘reader-friendly’ avatar. [caption id=“attachment_609059” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] The  histories of all wars and major operations undertaken by the Indian armed forces will be re-written and rolled out by September, according to reports. A plan with vague deadlines has been planned for further releases of the different war histories, movies and comic books by 2020-2022, reports TOI. According to the government, students and forthcoming generations need to be “educated” about contributions made by the Indian armed forces.  The timeframe would include pre and post-Independence eras as well as in counter-insurgency operations and UN peacekeeping missions. The DNA reports that, the history of 1971 war will be published in December 2016. and the simplified history of the Kargil war will be published to mark its 20th anniversary in 2019. Books related to Indian Army’s participation in World War I and II is also set to be published sometime in 2019-20. “They should find a place in school curricula,” the official said to TOI. This is not the first time the BJP led government has tried to rewrite our history books. According to an  earlier report, the Janata government first thought of changing NCERT history textbooks in 1977. When the NDA came to power in 1999, all NCERT textbooks were changed and when the UPA came to power in 2004 they replaced them again. The RSS last year , to celebrate its centenary, wanted to piece together the history of over 670 districts and 600 tribal communities in the country  to produce a version of Indian history based on the Puranas. Not only that but when HRD minister Smriti Irani declared that ancient Hindu texts should be included in school curriculum. Even Dinanath Batra - who was behind Penguin’s withdrawal of American scholar Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus - sent proposals to Irani after she assumed office, demanding a revamp of school curriculum so that “values and nationalism’ could be inculcated in students. It’s not just us,  as this article notes, Pakistan actively engages in re-writing its textbooks too.