NCERT reconstitutes textbook development team for class 11, 12 political science; at least 4 members have RSS links
NCERT Reconstitutes Textbook Development Team
Bharatmorningnews.com – The National Council of Educational Research and Training has officially reconstituted its textbook development team for class 11 and 12 political science, replacing the previous panel with a new group of academics and educators. The freshly constituted body carries a written mandate to embed cultural rootedness, Indian knowledge systems, and inclusive pedagogy into the senior-secondary curriculum. Notably, at least four members of the reconstituted panel hold documented, direct or indirect affiliations with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its associated organisations.
Sandeep Shastri, an academic and political analyst serving as vice president of Nitte—a deemed university in Karnataka—will chair the effort. The group operates under a compressed schedule: the class 11 volume must be finalised by November of the current academic year, while the class 12 text is due by July of the following year. NCERT reconstitutes textbook development team compositions periodically to align content with evolving curricular frameworks, and this latest reshuffle follows that internal protocol.
Members with RSS-Linked Backgrounds
Yadunath Deshpande, presently a senior consultant attached to the Ministry of Education, spent several years inside the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Organisational records identify him as joint state organising secretary for Maharashtra and subsequently as organising secretary within the ABVP’s Mumbai-Konkan structure, giving him deep institutional familiarity with the Sangh-parivar’s student wing.
Prashant Divekar maintains a long-standing intellectual connection with Jnana Prabodhini, a Pune-based institution founded in 1962 by Vinayak Vishwanath, an RSS pracharak. On the National Council for Teacher Education’s National Mission for Mentoring portal, Divekar describes his pedagogical orientation as
“rooted in Bhartiya educational philosophy”
and cites his contribution to the National Curriculum Framework as evidence of that alignment.
Vandana Mishra, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Political Studies, previously served as national secretary of the ABVP. Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla, Associate Professor at JNU’s Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, sits on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Democratic Governance. That journal is published by the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership–Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an RSS affiliate whose presidency Devendra Fadnavis assumed in 2021. Shukla’s own scholarship centres on cultural and spiritual nationalism; he is principal investigator of an ICSSR-funded JNU project examining the role of fests in shaping spiritual and cultural nationalism of Bharat, with a focus on Kumbh and Magh Mela.
Broader Team Composition and Oversight
Beyond the four RSS-linked academics, the reconstituted panel draws on scholars from institutions across the country: Prakash Kandpal (JNU), Needhi Gupta (National Law University), Chetan Singhai (Chanakya University), Sukanshika Vatsa (Delhi University), Satish Kumar (IGNOU), Deevanshu Shrivastava (National University of Study and Research in Law), Pranav Gupta (Jindal Global Law School), Nanda Kishor (Pondicherry University), and Swapna Prabhu (Utkal University).
Additional members include Savita Sagar of NCERT itself, M N Suresh Kumar from the Government First Grade College in Bengaluru, Diana Isabel of a Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation School, and N. Bharani from SHVNM Government PU College for Girls. Within NCERT, Vanthangpui Khobung will act as member coordinator and Subhash Singh as co-coordinator, ensuring day-to-day administrative continuity.
An NCERT notification outlines the panel’s working parameters. The team will draw guidance from the curricular area group covering social science, languages, Indian knowledge systems, environmental education, innovative pedagogy, and teaching-learning material. It will also engage other curricular area groups to maintain grade-to-grade linkages, interdisciplinarity across subjects, and the incorporation of multilingual perspectives. On quality control, NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani stated:
“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.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did NCERT reconstitute the textbook development team for political science? NCERT periodically reshuffles its subject-specific panels to refresh expertise, align content with updated curricular frameworks, and ensure compliance with national education policy directives. The latest reconstitution also responds to the need to integrate Indian knowledge systems and cultural rootedness into senior-secondary materials.
What is the deadline for the new class 11 and 12 political science textbooks? The class 11 volume must be completed by November of the current academic year. The class 12 text is due by July of the following year, giving the panel roughly eighteen months of active work.
How many members of the new panel have RSS-linked backgrounds? At least four members—Yadunath Deshpande, Prashant Divekar, Vandana Mishra, and Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla—carry documented affiliations with the RSS or its affiliated organisations such as the ABVP, Jnana Prabodhini, and the Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership.