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 textbook team will be led by academic and political analyst Sandeep Shastri, vice president of Karnataka-based deemed university Nitte. 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. Shukla has also undertaken research centred on cultural and spiritual nationalism.
In 2021, Devendra Fadnavis had become its president.
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”.
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.
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, according to an NCERT notification. “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.
