Will rid textbooks of Nadar reference next year: Tharoor

The controversial mention of the Nadar community will be removed from next year’s CBSE Class IX textbook, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor said here on Saturday.

Tharoor, who was here to attend a function said the matter was brought to his notice by a delegation of Congressmen from Nagercoil. “I held discussions with the director of NCERT, the historian who wrote the chapter and HRD officials. I pointed out that there was a good reason to remove it from the books,” he said.

“Hence it involves a long process, a quick change cannot be made in the book. The matter has been referred to the Textbook Development Committee and their recommendations have to go to the National Monitoring Committee, he said.

“We have to wait for their findings, but I believe that we had made a good argument,” the minister said.

When asked about the time needed to complete the process, the minister said, “The final outcome will be in next year’s text books.”

Stating that the Social Science textbook for Class IX wrongly depicted the community, the Nadars from the state demanded the Union Government to remove the controversial lines from the book.