Days after Yogesh Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, advisors for National Council For Educational Research and Training (NCERT), distanced themselves from the “rationalised” political science textbooks, 33 academics from prestigious colleges across India, who were on the textbook development committee, wrote to the NCERT Director D.P. Saklani on June 14, requesting their names be removed from the textbooks. Mr. Saklani acknowledged to The Hindu that the letter had been received but refused to comment on NCERT’s further reaction on it.
“NCERT is now making changes to the textbooks. These involve deletions of sentences and removal of some sections (even chapters) considered unacceptable with emphasis given to others considered desirable,” the letter said.
It further stated, “The decision of who decides what is unacceptable and what is desirable has been kept rather opaque, violating the core principles of transparency and contestation that, we believe, underlies academic knowledge production.”
