Goa, June 26 -- The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has introduced significant changes to its revised Class 9 Social Science textbook, adding a chapter on the 1975-77 Emergency while omitting the Preamble and references to "secular" and "secularism" that were included in the previous edition. The revised book, developed under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023, has triggered a fresh political debate.

Unlike the earlier textbook, which dedicated an entire chapter to the Constitution and used the Preamble to explain constitutional values, the new edition discusses the Constitution through its formation, democratic institutions and f...