Political analysts Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, who helped develop the syllabus of classes 9 to 12 political science, have threatened to sue the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) if their names are not removed from the list of contributors. NCERT had defended its decision to remove references to the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, LK Advani’s Rath Yatra, and the 2002 Gujarat Riots from the class 12 Political Science textbook. Around 26 academicians had also expressed their concerns regarding these new textbooks. 

The chief advisors of the original textbooks wrote a letter to Saklani stating that they had categorically asked NCERT last year to ensure that their names are not used in the soft copies of the textbooks available on the website and its print editions. “We are shocked to discover that more than a year after our original request, the NCERT has gone ahead to publish and distribute the new edition of these six textbooks without removing our names from the publications that we do not wish to be associated with. The NCERT did not act upon our request, nor did it have the courtesy to write back to us,” the letter read.

Yadav and Palshikar further said that they were distressed to learn that the NCERT has taken a step further in its drive towards indiscriminate distortion of these textbooks. “Both of us, as Chief Advisors of the original textbooks, have already registered our strong disapproval of this unethical, unacademic and illegal practice of mutilation of textbooks that violate both the authors’ rights to intellectual property and the students’ right to quality education. The NCERT has no moral or legal right to distort these textbooks without consulting any of us and yet publish these under our names despite our explicit refusal,” it noted.

The letter further mentioned that NCERT is “hiding behind our names” to provide students with Political Science textbooks that are “politically biased, academically indefensible and pedagogically dysfunctional.”