Saffron shades in NCERT’s political science textbook team for class 11, 12

The NCERT has reconstituted its textbook development team for Class 11 and 12 political science with a mandate to integrate cultural rootedness, Indian knowledge systems and inclusion. At least four of the 20 members have direct or indirect links with the RSS.

The team is tasked with developing the Class 11 textbook by November and the Class 12 textbook 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 background in the ABVP. The organisation's records identify him as its former joint state organising secretary for Maharashtra. He also served as organising secretary in the ABVP's Mumbai-Konkan unit. Deshpande’s LinkedIn profile describes him as a political consultant for the 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 notes his contribution 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 served on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Democratic Governance, published by the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership-- Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an RSS affiliate.

In 2021, Devendra Fadnavis became its president. Shukla’s research focuses on cultural and spiritual nationalism, including an ICSSR-funded JNU project titled “The Role of Fests in Shaping Spiritual and Cultural Nationalism of Bharat: A Study of Kumbha and Magh Mela.”

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," according to the notification issued by NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani.