New Delhi, April 10 -- In a major step toward implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the NCERT officially released its new Class 9 Hindi textbook on Friday.

Named 'Ganga', the book is designed to reflect the river's symbolic role in Indian civilisation, mirroring the "continuous flow" and spread of the Hindi language across the country. The new book contains Raidas' Pad, 'Ram-Lakshman-Parshuram-Samvad', 'Bharati Jai Vijayi Kare', 'Jhansi Ki Rani', blending language learning with devotional texts, nationalist stories and poems.

"Like the river Ganga, Hindi is also an identity of our civilisation and culture. Hindi is spoken, understood, and read across a large part of India," the book mentions in Hindi.

The book tries to...