‘Unwarranted’: JNU VC Santishree D Pandit calls the debate over the rationalisation of the NCERT textbooks

JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D Pandit said on Friday that the current debate surrounding the rationalisation of NCERT textbooks is “unwarranted” and that the updated curriculum must contain fresh “discoveries and knowledge.”

Her comments came a day after a number of academics who were members of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook creation committees demanded that their names be removed from books because their “collective effort is in jeopardy” in a letter to the council.

According to Pandit, the most recent changes after the rationalisation are a result of the cancel culture, in which a certain group considers their opinion to be final and feels that no one else has the right to express a different viewpoint.

 

Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, among other academics and political scientists, requested a few days ago that their names be removed from textbooks due to “several substantive revisions of the original texts”.

 

“The current debate around the NCERT textbook is unjustified. The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice chancellor said that this is because no book is attributed to a single author.

 

She called it really “unfortunate” that politicians are attempting to use rationalisation as a political talking point.

 

People rationalise the curriculum; hence, curriculum modification is essential. The last change was made in 2006, and that situation cannot continue indefinitely. She said, “You have to keep changing with new knowledge and discoveries.”

 

“It is very much in keeping with the type of conspiracy and cancel culture saying that what they have to say should be the last word and nobody else has the right to have an opinion and a group of historians is right in everything,” she said.

 

Up to 73 academicians, including vice chancellors of central universities, directors of the National Institutes of Technology (NIT), and chairs of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), referred to the withdrawal of names due to the NCERT textbook controversy as a “spectacle” by some “arrogant and self-interested” individuals on Thursday.

 

Additionally, they said that it was interfering with the crucial process of upgrading the curriculum.

 

The Opposition accused the BJP-led Centre of “whitewashing with vengeance” after a number of issues and sections were removed from NCERT textbooks last month.

 

The main source of contention was the fact that although the modifications made as part of the rationalisation process were reported, some of the contentious deletions were not even noted, giving rise to accusations of a covert attempt to remove certain parts.

 

Although the deletions were based on professional advice, the NCERT declined to reverse them, describing the omissions as a potential error.

 

Additionally, it said that the textbooks will be revised in 2024, the year the National Curriculum Framework to be implemented. Later on, it reversed course and said that “Minor changes need not be notified.”