Mysuru Professor among 33 to withdraw from NCERT textbooks panel

A Mysuru-based professor is among the 33 political scientists from across India, having withdrawn from the National Council of Educational Research (NCERT) Textbook Development Committee, recently.

Mujaffar Assadi of University of Mysore (UoM) is among the signatories in the letter addressed to Director of NCERT Dinesh Prasad Saklani, on June 14. “There is a growing concern and increasing alarm about NCERT’s attempts to modify and revise textbooks. We were involved in producing textbooks in Political Science. We hoped to explain to school students the ideals of our freedom struggle, aspirations of the Constituent Assembly, principles of our constitutional order, the role of leaders and movements, the nature of our federal system, the promising and dynamic qualities of our democratic republic, key episodes of contemporary politics in India, and the global developments and theoretical principles of Political Science in this unique Indian context, through the textbooks,” the letter states.

“The political scientists came from multiple perspectives and had varied ideological positions. Yet, we were able to work together. We now believe that our creative collective effort is in jeopardy.

NCERT is now making changes to the textbooks. It involves deletions of sentences and removal of some sections (even chapters) considered unacceptable with emphasis given to others considered desirable. 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,” the letter states.

Besides Assadi, the professors are from National University, Singapore; Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata; CSDS, Delhi; JNU, New Delhi; University of Delhi; MS University, Baroda; Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune; Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; Guahati University; Center for Gender and Education, New Delhi; Dr BR Ambedkar University, Delhi, University of Hyderabad; Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Governance and Social Sciences, Jaipur; Shiv Nadar University, NOIDA; New Delhi; Calcutta University, Kolkata; Assam University, Silchar; IISER, Pune; NITTE, Bengaluru; and GITAM (deemed University), Visakhapattanam.