India, June 26 -- Activist and Swaraj India founder Yogendra Yadav countered union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's remarks on the NCERT including a reference to the 1975 Emergency in its textbook.

After Pradhan said that the NCERT had done a "good job" by bringing the topic to the "forefront", Yadav replied that a chapter on the Emergency had already been included in a 2007 textbook, which he had helped in writing.

The row began after the NCERT, in its newly developed Class 9 Social Science texbook, flagged the emergency as "one of the major challenges" faced by the Indian democracy. The section on the Emergency was included in a chapter highlighting the strengths and challenges of a democracy.

Backing the NCERT's move to intro...