New Delhi, India (PTI): Several Opposition parties and student organisations on Thursday accused the government of seeking to push the RSS's ideological imprint on school education after some people with links to the Sangh were named in a team constituted by NCERT tasked with writing new political science textbooks for classes 11 and 12.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh accused the NCERT of carrying out "sanghikaran" of textbooks, while party MP Syed Naseer Hussain said the composition of the panel raised concerns about the political independence of the textbook development process.
Ramesh said the NCERT now stood for "Nagpur Coterie for Educational Re-writing and Troublemaking".
RJD Rajya Sabha member Manoj Jha questioned the inclusion of people associated with such organisations, while the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and the Left-affiliated All India Students' Association (AISA) also attacked the composition of the team.
The reactions came after PTI reported on Wednesday that the NCERT had reconstituted its Textbook Development Team for classes 11 and 12 political science with a mandate that includes integrating "cultural rootedness", "Indian knowledge systems" and inclusion.
At least four academics and educationists on the team have direct or indirect documented backgrounds in the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the BJP or institutions associated with the Sangh.
Following the eruption of the controversy, one of team members Yadunath Deshpande's LinkedIn accounts, in which he had described himself as a "political consultant" for the BJP and highlighted his links with the ABVP, was no longer opening on Thursday, appearing to have been deleted.
Deshpande, currently a senior consultant with the Ministry of Education, has a longstanding organisational background in the ABVP. Records of the student organisation identify him as a former joint state organising secretary for Maharashtra. He subsequently served as an organising secretary in its Mumbai-Konkan structure.
"What the NCERT has done has been happening over last 12 years whether the education minister is Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank', Dharmendra Pradhan or Pralhad Joshi," Ramesh said.
"On one hand, they are doing 'shuddhikaran' which is a sin and on the other hand they are doing 'sanghikaran' of textbooks which is a curse," the Rajya Sabha member and in-charge of the party's communications added.
Hussain alleged that the BJP government had repeatedly used school textbooks and curricula to further its ideological agenda.
"The BJP government has repeatedly used textbooks and curricula to advance its ideological agenda, from altering historical narratives and removing inconvenient chapters to reshaping school education through schemes including PM SHRI. The inclusion of individuals with established RSS and BJP affiliations in a political science textbook panel in this context deepens these concerns," the Rajya Sabha member said.
Hussain urged the NCERT and the education ministry to ensure that textbook development remained "academically rigorous, politically independent and rooted in India's constitutional ethos".
Jha also questioned the composition of the team, saying questions were bound to be raised when people associated with organisations that had "destroyed the education ecosystem" were being roped in.
NSUI president Vinod Jakhar said the inclusion of people associated with the RSS in an institution responsible for preparing school textbooks reflected what he called the BJP's attempt to use education to impose its ideology.
"We will not allow education to become a laboratory for the Sangh's ideology. Under the leadership of Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, NSUI will firmly raise its voice in every campus against BJP-RSS interference for the rights of students and the freedom of education," he said.
In his reaction, TMC MP Kirti Azad took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent reference to "dimaagi Naxals", alleging that the BJP wanted people to remain "half literates" because people who read and write begin raising questions on issues that matter.
"That is why they rope in people linked with the RSS," the Lok Sabha member told PTI Videos.
AISA described the 16-member team as a "backdoor entry for BJP-RSS propaganda" and demanded its immediate dissolution.
"It is abundantly clear that this 16-member committee is a backdoor entry for BJP-RSS propaganda. By packing the panel with individuals possessing direct and documented links to the RSS, BJP, and ABVP, the government is ensuring that the political science curriculum is reduced to a mouthpiece for their ideology of hate and pro-corporate stance," it said.
Besides Deshpande, the members whose backgrounds have drawn attention include JNU professor Vandana Mishra, a former national secretary of the ABVP, and Prashant Divekar, who has a longstanding association with Pune-based Jnana Prabodhini, an RSS-affiliated institution founded in 1962 by Vinayak Vishwanath Pendse, an RSS member and pracharak.
Another member, JNU associate professor Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla, has been a member of the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Democratic Governance, published by the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership-Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an RSS affiliate.
Textbook revisions at the NCERT have frequently been accompanied by political controversy. The National Curriculum Framework of 2000, prepared when BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi was HRD minister, had also faced allegations of "saffronisation", while the UPA government's subsequent overhaul under the 2005 framework was accused by the BJP of reflecting the ideological preferences of the new dispensation.
The 2005 exercise involved more than 280 experts, with a steering committee chaired by educationist Yash Pal. Those associated with the process included Ramachandra Guha, Gopal Guru, Yogendra Yadav, Suhas Palshikar, Apoorvanand, Madhav Gadgil and Shubha Mudgal, among others.
The political science textbooks brought out during the UPA were prepared under an advisory committee chaired by historian Hari Vasudevan, with Palshikar and Yadav as chief advisers. Their development teams included Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Aditya Nigam, Rajeshwari Deshpande and Sajal Nag, among others.
This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.