The Congress on Wednesday accused the government of distorting history and “whitewashing with a vengeance” after certain content from NCERT textbooks was dropped, including on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent ban on the RSS for some time. The Opposition party slammed the BJP-RSS, saying that those who try to re-write history are consigned to the “dustbin of history”.

“Gandhiji’s death had a magical effect on communal situation in the country”, “Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” and “Organisations like RSS were banned for some time” are among the texts missing from the Std XII political science textbook for the new academic session. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “You can (make) changes in textbooks but you cannot change the history of the country. This is an attempt by the BJP-RSS, they can try as much as they want, but they cannot erase history.”