The issue of dropping the Preamble to the Constitution from several newly introduced textbooks by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) this year reached the Parliament on Wednesday.

During Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha, leader of Opposition and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue and said the Preamble is the soul of the Constitution.

“In the NCERT textbooks, the Preamble to the Constitution has been dropped. The Preamble to the Constitution used to be printed in the textbooks earlier. Preamble is the soul of the Constitution. Preamble embodies the Constitution’s fundamental principles like justice, liberty, equality and fraternity,” Kharge said.

Kharge said the Constituent Assembly agreed that our political democracy should become a social democracy as well.

“A political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. Social democracy means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity. Every citizen and future generation must know about freedom fighters, makers of the Constitution, democracy, Constitution and its foundational principles,” Kharge said.

He said Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and others have sacrificed a lot for the country. However, the BJP government has relocated the statues of Gandhi and Ambedkar inside the Parliament House complex, he said.

“Now the government is tampering with the Constitution. I warn you that people will not approve of this. The RSS and BJP are tampering with the syllabus to impose their communal ideology. What NCERT has done is not correct,” Kharge said.

The government should make a detailed statement in the House on the changes and take back the changes with respect to the Constitution.

He waved the clipping of the story published in The Telegraph and started reading from it when Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar asked him to stop.

The chairman said all parties are committed to the Constitution.

Leader of the House and BJP president J.P. Nadda said there is no clarity on the source of information raised by Kharge. He said newspaper reports can never be the source. He said the Narendra Modi government has given high priority to the Constitution. He said the Modi government started celebrating 26th November as Constitution Day, something the Congress governments never thought about.

“This government is committed to the Constitution. On 25th June, 1975, the Constitution was trampled. Elected governments have been dismissed 90 times [during Congress regime]. Your government tried to ban RSS twice. But RSS emerged stronger. It is a patriotic organisation,” Nadda said.

Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan denied the charge about dropping the Preamble.

“Preamble used to be there earlier. The Preamble is there in the new textbooks of Class VI. Along with Preamble, there are Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and National Anthem too. These also represent the core values of the Constitution. Whatever he read was not factually correct,” Pradhan said.

This year, the NCERT has introduced new textbooks for Class III and Class VI. The Mathematics book for Class VI has not come out yet.

Looking Around, and the Hindi book, Rimjhim 3, did have the Preamble. In the old textbooks for Class VI, the Preamble was printed on one of the first few pages of the Hindi textbook Durva, the English book Honeysuckle, the science book and all three EVS books — Our Pasts-I, Social and Political Life-I and The Earth Our Habitat.

In the newly introduced books, the Preamble is printed only in the science book, Curiosity, and the Hindi book Malhar. The NCERT has published just one book on environmental studies in place of three. This book, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, does not have the Preamble, but mentions the fundamental rights and fundamental duties.

The new English textbook, Poorvi, has the national anthem, while the Sanskrit text, Deepakam, has both the national anthem and the national song, but not the Preamble. The earlier Sanskrit book, Ruchira, did not have the Preamble, either.

In Class III, none of the new textbooks for Hindi, English, mathematics and World Around Us (which replaces EVS) has printed the Preamble. The old EVS book, Looking Around, and the Hindi book, Rimjhim 3, did have the Preamble.