Four RSS, ABVP-Linked Members Part Of New NCERT Textbook Team

The NCERT has reconstituted the Textbook Development Team for class 11 and 12 political science with a mandate to integrate cultural rootedness, Indian knowledge systems and inclusion, with at least four of the members having direct or indirect links with the RSS.

The team has been asked to develop the class 11 textbook by November and the class 12 book by July next year.

The textbook team will be led by academic and political analyst Sandeep Shastri, vice president of Karnataka-based deemed university Nitte.

Among the members of the textbook development team are at least four academics and educationists with direct or indirect documented backgrounds in the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the BJP.

Yadunath Deshpande, now a senior consultant with the Ministry of Education, has a longstanding organisational background in the ABVP. The organisation's own records identify him as its joint state organising secretary for Maharashtra in the past. He subsequently served as an organising secretary in the ABVP's Mumbai-Konkan structure. His LinkedIn profile also describes him as political consultant for BJP.

Prashant Divekar has a longstanding association with Pune-based Jnana Prabodhini, an RSS-affiliated institution. It was founded in 1962 by Vinayak Vishwanath, an RSS member and pracharak. In his profile on the National Council for Teacher Education's National Mission for Mentoring portal, Divekar describes his approach as being "rooted in Bhartiya educational philosophy' and says he has contributed to the National Curriculum Framework." Vandana Mishra, professor at JNU's Centre for Political Studies, is a former national secretary of the ABVP.

Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla, Associate Professor at JNU's Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, 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, which is an RSS affiliate.

In 2021, Devendra Fadnavis had become its president. Shukla has also undertaken research centred on cultural and spiritual nationalism. He is the principal investigator of an ICSSR-funded JNU project titled "The Role of Fests in Shaping of Spiritual and Cultural Nationalism of Bharat: A Study of Kumbha and Magh Mela".

The team also comprises Prakash Kandpal from JNU, Needhi Gupta from National Law University, Chetan Singhai from Chanakya University, Sukanshika Vatsa from Delhi University, Satish Kumar from IGNOU, Deevanshu Shrivastava from National University of Study and Research in Law, Pranav Gupta from Jindal Global Law School, Nanda Kishor from Pondicherry University and Swapna Prabhu from Utkal University.

Other members include NCERT's Savita Sagar, M N Suresh Kumar from Bengaluru- based Government First Grade College, Diana Isabel from Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation School, N. Bharani from SHVNM Government PU College for Girls.

Vanthangpui Khobung and Subhash Singh of NCERT will be member coordinator and co-coordinator, respectively.

According to an NCERT notification, the team will seek guidance from the curricular area group on social science, languages, Indian knowledge systems, environmental education, innovative pedagogy and teaching-learning material.

It will also consult other curricular area groups to ensure linkages with other grades, interdisciplinarity among subjects, and the integration of multilingual perspectives.

"Review of each of the textbooks will take place to oversee the integration of cross-cutting themes, such as cultural rootedness, Indian knowledge systems, inclusion, educational technology, assessment, etc," the notification issued by NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said.