Short answers, pulled from the story.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training began its work in 1961 as a government body designed to guide school education across India. Its early years focused on unifying diverse communities through secular history textbooks written by scholars like Romila Thapar.
In 2002, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government initiated a major overhaul of NCERT textbooks through a new National Curriculum Framework. During this period, NCERT deleted references to beef-eating, cattle sacrifice, and critical evaluations of Puranic traditions without consulting original authors.
April 2012 saw Republican Party leader Ramdas Athavale burn copies of a Grade 11 Political Science textbook containing a cartoon depicting B.R. Ambedkar sitting on a snail labeled Constitution. The image showed Pandit Nehru holding a whip behind him with the caption describing the slow pace of constitutional drafting.
Between 2017 and 2021, NCERT conducted multiple review exercises reducing syllabus material significantly. Rationalization efforts removed entire chapters on clothing history, cricket stories, peasant movements, and nationalist struggles in Indo-China while eliminating topics related to Islamic history including Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts from Class 12.
Following Chandrayaan-3 moon landing in August 2023, NCERT released ten reading modules titled Chandrayaan Utsav for middle school students. The third module claimed ancient Indian texts like Vaimānika Shāstra contained knowledge of flying vehicles despite scientific evidence contradicting this assertion.
April 2025 released a Class 7 textbook removing all references to Muslim rule periods including Tughlaq Khalji Lodi and Mughal dynasties. Instead it added content focusing on ancient kingdoms such as Magadha Maurya Shunga and Satavahanas alongside a new chapter titled How the Land Becomes Sacred covering pilgrimage sites across India.