The National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has substantially rewritten portions of a chapter on India’s freedom struggle, recasting references to the Congress’s role in the Partition, adding a mention of VD Savarkar’s demand for Swaraj, and removing explicit references to Adolf Hitler from a section on Subhas Chandra Bose.NCERT revises textbook, modifies partition and congress references (HT_PRINT)The Class 8 Social Science Part 1 textbook was released July 2025 and Part 2 on February 23, 2026. The second volume triggered controversy over a section titled “Corruption in the judiciary”, prompting the Supreme Court to scrap the textbook. The revised textbook was released on Monday and will be used by students from the current academic year 2026-27.It is not clear why NCERT felt the need to rewrite the history chapter. The history chapter titled ‘India’s Long Road to Independence’ in the revised Class 8 social science textbook — Exploring Society: India and Beyond Part 2 – says Partition was “widely opposed even by the Indian National Congress” and that whether accepting it was “the only way forward” remains a matter of debate.The withdrawn textbook stated that “taking advantage of the disagreements between Hindu and Muslim leaders, the British decided to divide India” and said that although Mahatma Gandhi and most Congress leaders opposed Partition, they “ended up accepting it as the only way forward”, while noting that many Indian Muslims also did not favour the division.The new textbook says the British had “for decades encouraged Hindu-Muslim differences to grow” and that Partition resulted from disagreements “between the two communities or rather small sections”. It states that the Partition plan “was widely opposed even by the Indian National Congress”, adding that there was “no national consensus”, and notes that whether accepting Partition was “the only way forward is an issue that has been debated ever since”.The new edition also removes a sentence from the earlier textbook that said “the Congress leaders were helpless” as communal massacres engulfed the subcontinent during Partition. The revised version retains Mahatma Gandhi’s remarks lamenting the violence but omits the reference to Congress leaders’ helplessness.The revised textbook also expands the story of the demand for complete independence by adding that “a similar demand for Swaraj was expressed by VD Savarkar in 1925”. The withdrawn textbook had referred to the Congress’s Nationalist faction, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose in tracing the evolution of the demand for Purna Swaraj. The revised version additionally mentions that Aurobindo had made a similar demand in 1908 before referring to Savarkar.The account of Bose’s stay in Germany has also been revised. The withdrawn text said Netaji sought Adolf Hitler’s support to raise an army and described Hitler as a “dictator” whose “racist Nazi ideology and expansionist goals” had triggered the Second World War. The revised edition instead states that Bose “sought support from the anti-British forces”, removing references to Hitler and Nazi ideology.Changes have also been made to the Quit India Movement section in the chapter. Instead of naming Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and other leaders as having been arrested immediately after the movement was launched in 1942, the revised book says, “virtually the entire leadership of the Congress was arrested.” The new text adds that socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan played an instrumental role in sustaining the “underground movement” after the arrests.NCERT and the Union education ministry did not respond to HT’s queries.NCERT officials said its textbooks were periodically revised after reviewing feedback and suggestions received from stakeholders.“NCERT officials review all the feedback, suggestions and complaints that we receive from stakeholders on textbooks. We update, revise and change our textbooks based on our review meetings and publish revised textbooks after first publications,” an NCERT official said, requesting anonymity.The revised textbook states in its acknowledgements that it was published pursuant to the review process undertaken “in compliance with the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India” in Suo Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1/2026. It adds that Chapter 4, “The Role of the Judiciary in Society”, was “rewritten” by an expert committee constituted by the Union ministry of education pursuant to the directions of the apex court through an order dated March 16. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the matter again on July 14.Following the controversy over the now-withdrawn textbook, the education ministry constituted an oversight committee headed by former Supreme Court judge justice Indu Malhotra, with former attorney general KK Venugopal and Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University vice-chancellor Prakash Singh as members.A member of the committee told HT that the panel was involved in re-writing the judiciary chapter. “We did not touch the content of any other chapters in the textbook,” the member said, requesting anonymity.The NCERT official quoted above said, “The expert committee had the mandate to re-write only the judiciary chapter.”