History textbooks to be revised

The NCERT has decided to 're-write' history again and revise the textbooks that Murali Manohar Joshi wanted to introduce. All very well, and from my ideological point of view, an excellent move. However, as I will blog in the next few days and argue, this whole business of 'rewriting' history that is problematic. In fact the earlier textbooks (the original ones of Thapar, Bipan Chandra et al), through their omissions and silences actually gave the space for these 'alternate' histories to be written. This is not to say that all alternate histories are equally legitimate. There is after all, 'good' history and 'bad' history, to be judged on the basis on how accurately one can draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence placed before oneself. And no one is arguing that Joshi is a 'reasonable' person! But what is heartening about the NCERT's move is that it seeks not to introduce a standardised book for each Class, but a series of books or reading materials, that children can draw upon. This means that you will have one or two core textbooks, but for those further interested in the subject, the NCERT will provide some guidelines on what else they could read. Considering how boring and appalling the CBSE history exams are, this could only be a Good Thing.