'Can't Be Forced To...': Advisors Response To NCERT's 'Out Of Question' Remark On Dropping Their Names From Textbooks

Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar questioned why their names were in the letter to the pupils given that NCERT said there was no one author of its textbooks.

Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra Yadav, two political scientists, asked NCERT once more on Saturday to remove their titles as top advisers from political science textbooks. They said that they should not be obliged to use a textbook that they no longer approve of, news agency PTI reported.

They requested that their names be removed from the books in a letter they sent to NCERT on Friday, claiming that a rationalisation process had "mutilated" the volumes beyond recognition and made them "academically dysfunctional."

They said in a statement released on Saturday that the textbooks that had once been a source of pride for them were now embarrassing them.

The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), however, stated that the disassociation of any person is not a possibility because school textbooks are created based on knowledge and comprehension of a certain subject and at no point is individual authorship claimed.

In the statement, Palshikar and Yadav said: "We have not raised issues of authorship, copyrights and NCERT's legal authority to modify these textbooks. Our point is very simple -- If they can use their legal right to distort and mutilate the text, we must be able to exercise our moral and legal right to dissociate our name from a textbook that we do not endorse. If the name of the textbook development committee is there to acknowledge our contribution, as the NCERT claims, then we must be free to decline this generosity."

"If the names of this committee are reported as a matter of record, as claimed in this statement, then it must also be recorded that we do not approve of the present version. The continuation of our names inside the present version of the book creates a false impression of endorsement, and we have every right to dissociate with this insinuation," they said. 

The statement went on to say that the signed letter introducing each book clearly identifies the two as its "authors"

"How can we be forced to introduce a textbook that we no longer recognise? Surely, if the NCERT can get experts to make changes as desired, it can publish their names. The NCERT cannot hide behind our names as Chief Advisors. Please remove our names from the textbooks that were once the source of pride for us but are now a source of embarrassment," it said.

 

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