Time to stop cultural isolation of North East! North East students demand dedicated chapter in NCERT; ABVP stands in support

NewsBharati    04-Jun-2021
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New Delhi, Jun 4:  Many student unions and organisations have started a ‘Twitter storm’ demanding a mandatory chapter on the north-eastern states of India in the NCERT curriculum. Over 30 student unions and organisations across India have started this movement called ‘A chapter for NE.'
 
 
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According to Lingdam Kame, president of 'All Arunachal Student Union of Chandigarh', this step has been taken to raise the issue of racial discrimination faced by people from the Northeast. With the hashtag ‘A chapter for NE’ and ‘Northeast Matters’, students will be constantly tweeting on Friday between 6 pm to 8 pm, in order to press their demands to the Union Education Ministry. “Because of racial discrimination, many people of the northeastern states have faced problems. We as students, who go to other states to pursue our studies, face racial discrimination at least 6-7 times a month,” Kame said. “We cannot say that the movement will completely eradicate the racial discrimination but it will surely to help to minimise it,” he added.
 
 
According to him, the history of the northeast and its people has vanished. ANI quotes Lingdam Kame saying, “We will be able to share our history and demography if a chapter is included in the NCERT books.” The online campaign was triggered by a racial slur passed by YouTuber Paras Singh via his channel. The 22-year-old YouTuber from Punjab called former Lok Sabha MP and sitting Congress legislator Ninong Ering from Arunachal Pradesh a “non-Indian” and said Arunachal Pradesh was “part of China”. A case was later filed against Singh.
 
 
 
 

At the same time, ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) too has extended their support to the students' demand through a tweet stating, "National General Secretary Nidhi Tripathi said, "ABVP has endeavored from time to time to intangibly connect the North-Eastern region with the rest of the country through initiatives like SEIL, Northeast Youth Parliament, Purvottar Ko Jaano - Bharat Ko Jaano Yatra etc. The previous governments never took the subjects of the North-East seriously, and unsubtly North-East was never included into the NCERT syllabus. Now that work on the National Curriculum Framework is progressing ahead, ABVP demands that the main subjects with regard to the North-East must be inculcated in the syllabus."