Collective Effort In Jeopardy, Drop Our Names: 33 Academicians To NCERT

In a letter to the NCERT last week, Mr Yadav and Mr Phalsikar had said a rationalisation exercise has "mutilated" the books beyond recognition and rendered those "academically dysfunctional", and the textbooks that were a source of pride for them earlier have now become a "source of embarrassment".

Days after political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar wrote to the NCERT, asking their names to be dropped from textbooks, 33 academicians, who were part of the Textbook Development Committee, have written to the council, saying their "collective creative effort is in jeopardy".

The academicians have also demanded that their names be "dropped" from the textbooks.

The signatories to a letter sent to NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani include Kanti Prasad Bajpai, a former JNU professor who currently serves as the vice dean at the National University, Singapore, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a former vice-chancellor of the Ashoka University, Rajeev Bhargava, a former director of CSDS, Niraja Gopal Jayal, a former JNU professor, Nivedita Menon, a JNU professor, Vipul Mudgal, the head of civil society watchdog Common Cause, KC Suri, a former professor at the University of Hyderabad who is now associated with the Gitam University, and Peter Ronald deSouza, a former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.

"Since there are several substantive revisions of the original texts, making them thereby different books, we find it difficult to claim that these are the books we produced and to associate our names with them.... We are now given to believe that this creative collective effort is in jeopardy," the letter read.