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New Delhi, June 11, 2023 (PPI-OT): Political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar have asked National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) to drop their names as chief advisers from all political science textbooks, saying a rationalisation exercise has “mutilated” the books beyond recognition and rendered them “academically dysfunctional”.
They were chief advisors for the NCERT’s political science textbooks and released their letter in light of disagreements with controversial changes that the education council recently made to many of its textbooks. Stating that they were “embarrassed” to be mentioned as chief advisers, Palshikar and Yadav have written to the NCERT, saying the cuts in the textbooks were arbitrary and irrational.
We were never consulted or even informed of these changes … The frequent and serial deletions do not seem to have any logic except to please the powers that be,” Palshikar and Yadav said in their letter to the NCERT director. “While the modifications have been justified on the grounds of ‘rationalisation’, we fail to see any pedagogical rationale at work here. We find that the text has been mutilated beyond recognition,” the letter also reads.
Among the changes the NCERT made to its political science textbooks earlier this year are removing references to the 2002 Gujarat riots from its Class 12 book, chapters titled ‘Democracy and Diversity’, ‘Popular Struggles and Movements’ and ‘Challenges of Democracy’ from its Class 10 book and a section on sedition from its Class 8 book. The NCERT also removed chapters relating to Mughal history from a Class 12 history textbook, and last year it deleted a chapter on Darwin’s theory of evolution from its Class 10 biology textbook.
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