Following a request from two academicians to have their names removed as chief advisers of Political Science textbooks for Classes 9 to 12, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) issued a circular stating that “individual authorship” cannot be claimed for its textbooks.
The controversy arose amid debates surrounding the removal of certain portions from school textbooks. Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav, both academicians and the latter also a leader of the Swaraj India party, wrote a letter to NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani stating, “If NCERT did consult other experts for deciding on these cuts and deletions, we explicitly state that we fully disagree with them in this regard.”
In their letter dated June 8, they claimed that the “rationalised texts” had been “mutilated beyond recognition” and that they were “embarrassed” to be associated with these textbooks.
The removed paragraphs included information about attempts by Hindu radicals to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, the ban imposed on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) after his assassination, as well as material related to the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the Mughal reign in India, among other topics.
Palshikar and Yadav wrote, “As academics who were actively involved in the creation of these textbooks, we feel ashamed that our names are linked as primary advisors to these distorted and academically dysfunctional textbooks. We want to make it unequivocally clear that we strongly oppose the process of altering the text under the pretext of rationalization.”
Prof @PalshikarSuhas and I have dissociated ourselves from the six NCERT textbooks that we had the honour to put together but that have now been mutilated beyond recognition. We have asked NCERT to remove our names from these books.
Our letter (attached here) says:
"we fail to… pic.twitter.com/d8cGg3tFge— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) June 9, 2023
In their letter, they also stated, “Both of us would like to distance ourselves from these textbooks and request the NCERT to drop our name. We request you to give effect to this request immediately and ensure that our names are not used in the soft copies of the textbooks available at the NCERT websites as well as in the subsequent print editions.”
Palshikar and Yadav said that they could not see any ‘pedagogic rationale’ behind the deletions by the NCERT. “Textbooks cannot and should not be shaped in this blatantly partisan manner and should not quell the spirit of critique and questioning among students of social sciences,” the letter continued.
“These textbooks as they stand now do not serve the purpose of training students of political science (in) both principles of politics and the broad patterns of political dynamics that have occurred over time,” the letter further states.
However, on June 9, the NCERT released a circular stating, “Textbooks at the school level are developed based on the state of our knowledge and understanding on a given subject. Therefore, at no stage individual authorship is claimed, hence the withdrawal of association by any one is out of question.”
Textbook Development Committees were constituted by NCERT from time to time. NCERT acknowledges their academic contribution and therefore publishes their names in the textbooks. Here is the list of areas where the members contribute. https://t.co/szNxVfj5nm pic.twitter.com/uS22lO2jxm
— NCERT (@ncert) June 9, 2023
“During 2005-2008, Textbook Development Committees (TDCs) were constituted by NCERT for development of textbooks in various subjects for all classes. These Committees were academic in nature and existed until the textbooks were developed. After the textbooks are published their copyright remains vested with NCERT independent of the Committees. Therefore, the roles of the members of the TDCs in various capacities such as Chief Advisor, Advisor, Member and Member-Coordinator was limited to advising how to design and develop the textbooks or contributing to the development of their contents and not beyond this,” the circular said.
“The terms of these TDCs have ended since the date of their first publication. However, NCERT acknowledges their academic contribution and only because of this, a matter of record, publishes names of all TDC members in each of its textbook. NCERT, as the copyright owner of all its textbooks, adopts clear procedures to make corrections/changes from time to time depending on, (a) feedbacks received from their users [teachers, students etc.]; (b) identification of factual inaccuracies, incompatible expression based on core values as recommended for textbook development etc. NCERT has been doing so on a regular basis for its reprint editions,” it stated.