Political scientists Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav have asked NCERT to drop their names as chief advisors from all Political Science textbooks, saying the rationalisation exercise has “mutilated” the books beyond recognition and rendered them “academically dysfunctional”.
Stating that they were embarrassed to be mentioned as chief advisors, Palshikar and Yadav have written to the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and said the cuts in the textbooks were arbitrary and irrational.
Palshikar and Yadav, who were chief advisors for the original Political Science books for classes 9 to 12, said, “While the modifications have been justified in the name of rationalisation, we fail to see any pedagogic rationale at work here. We find that the text has been mutilated beyond recognition. There are innumerable and irrational cuts and large deletions without any attempts to fill the gaps created.
“We were never consulted or even informed of these changes. If NCERT did consult other experts for deciding on these cuts and deletions, we explicitly state that we fully disagree with them in this regard,” according to the letter sent to NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani.