The erasure of caste or varna from the Class VI social science textbook has now been institutionalised.

What was first attempted on the pretext of reducing the syllabus citing Covid-19 disruptions has now been formalised in the new textbook rolled out by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on Friday.

The textbook Exploring Society India and Beyond, the first social science book to be released under the Narendra Modi government’s tenure, has details on the Vedas without mentioning the caste system and that women and Shudras were not allowed to study these scriptures.

The chapter “India’s Cultural Roots” describes the Vedas, their messages and the teachings of Buddhism and Jainism. It mentions the different janas or clans like the Bharatas, the Purus, the Kurus, the Yadus and the Turvashas.

It, however, did not reflect on the social hierarchy despite many scholars tracing the caste or varna system to the Vedas. It states just one sentence on different professions as mentioned in the vedic texts. “Many professions are mentioned in the vedic texts, such as agriculturist, weaver, potter, builder, carpenter, healer, dancer, barber, priest, etc,” it said.

The chapter also gave details on the performance of rituals. It said the Upanishads built upon vedic concepts introduced rebirth and karma, actions or their results.

“According to one school of thought, generally known as ‘vedanta’, everything — human life, nature and the universe — is one divine essence called brahman,” it said.

Early in the 1st millennium BCE, several more schools of thought grew out of the Vedas. One of them was yoga, which developed methods intended to achieve the realisation of brahman in one’s consciousness. Together, these schools of thought became the foundations for what we call “Hinduism” today, it said.

The chapter also gave stories from the Upanishads like Shvetaketu and the seed of reality and Nachiketa and his quest and the debate of Gargi and Yajnavalkya.

The previous textbook, “Our Pasts-I”, before the rationalisation exercise in 2022 had details of the caste system.

“Some priests divided people into four groups called varnas…Shudras could not perform any rituals. Often women were grouped with Shudras. Both women and Shudras were not allowed to study the Vedas,” the old book said.

“The priests also said that these groups were decided based on birth. For example, if one’s father and mother were Brahmins one would automatically become a Brahmin and so on...,” the old book said.