When international literature is omitted from textbooks, students lose a window to the wider world.

Periodic revisions of textbooks are essential. However, such revisions must not lose sight of the goal: exposing them to a living curriculum that encourages curiosity, strengthens critical thinking

Periodic reviews of textbooks are essential.

There is a poem by Robert Frost that is familiar to students of a certain age: “I will tell it with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and ages hence:/ Two roads diverged in the wood, and I —/ I took the one less travelled,/ And that made all the difference.” One of the joys of literature is leading the reader to unexpected thrills along that unknown road: a writer you have never heard of; a worldview that shocks; a piece of work so achingly beautiful that you don’t want it to end. It leads to a world beyond the familiar and the comfortable, turning readers into seekers. In its recently revamped Class VI English textbook, Poorvi, designed in line with the New Education Policy 2020’s call for a curriculum “rooted in Indian and local context and ethos,” NCERT seeks to situate this universe in the diversity of India. The poems, essays and short stories it now presents are by some of India’s most renowned writers, including SI Farooqi, Sudha Murty and others. It offers students a window into the heterogeneity that exists in the country. But by largely omitting international writers, it does young people a disservice—it deprives them of a window into the wider world.

Periodic revisions of textbooks are essential. There is a pragmatism in introducing children to the multiplicity that is contained in India, transcending the boundaries of region and language, custom and religion. There is also a weight to the idea of ​​decolonization, which can serve as an introduction to the vast arc of literature that exists outside the traditional canon. Studying any discipline requires context, and the colonial trajectory is anything but representative. But such revisions cannot lose sight of the goal: exposing students to a vibrant curriculum that encourages curiosity, strengthens critical thinking and acts as a springboard into the lives and experiences of those who are both culturally and geographically similar and different. Literature “made in India” alone will not suffice for this.