INQUIRY INTO NCERT AFFAIRS

J S RAJPUT GUILTY

Arjun Dev

DR J S Rajput was appointed director of NCERT by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, minister of human resource development in the BJP-led NDA government, in July 1999, to implement the Sangh Parivar’s communal agenda in the area of school education. He completed his full term of five years in the service of the cause for which he had been appointed and demitted office two months after the government that had appointed him was ousted. His ideological guru and his benefactor, Dr M M Joshi, who had also been his teacher, whom Dr Rajput served most faithfully and obediently, and much beyond the call of duty, lost his election on May 13, 2004. However, even in his defeat, the guru did not forget this faithful and obedient pupil of his. He nominated him to UNESCO for the award of the prestigious Comenius Medal, named after the famous 17th century Czech educator. Even when it was clear that NDA had lost the election. Alas, this could not be.

SUMMARY REPORT

Had the BJP and Dr Joshi come back to power, Dr Rajput would have been enjoying his second term now to continue his reign of terror in the service of Hindutva even more brazenly than he did during his first term. In March 2004, some members of the NCERT faculty had addressed a detailed letter to Dr Joshi in which they pointed out that they had lived “under an unabashed tyranny” during the past five years and they looked forward to the “end of the tyrannical “regime” in July” when Dr Rajput’s term was due to end. The letter listed a number of misdeeds committed by Dr Rajput and ended with the statement that “Giving him another term or even extending his present term would be an unmitigated disaster for the NCERT.” Within two months of that letter, the BJP-led government was ousted and a preliminary inquiry was ordered into the irregularities committed by Dr Rajput. The report of this inquiry, conducted by an official of MHRD, was never made public. There was a demand by the NCERT faculty that there should be a comprehensive inquiry.

The demand received strong support from some former members of NCERT’s faculty. In August 2004, MHRD entrusted S Sathyam, a former secretary to the government of India, to conduct the inquiry. Shri Sathyam, despite initial non-cooperation by the NCERT bureaucracy, completed the inquiry and submitted its report to the MHRD in early May 2005. Unfortunately, what has become public so far is only a nine-page summary of the report which, it is believed, runs into hundreds of pages. While, therefore, a full account of the misdeeds of Dr Rajput, and of his guru in the MHRD (for nothing was done and could have been without the full consent and in many cases at the instance of the guru), will be known only after the full report is made public, the summary itself is damning enough and forms more than adequate basis for initiating action against Dr Rajput and some of his acolytes, both in and out of service.

The Sathyam inquiry committee, according to the summary, found that 27 complaints have substance whereas the committee recommended action in respect of 101 complaints. A reading of the summary will make look even some of the more notorious scamsters as gross underachievers when compared with the achievements of this educationist who introduced the term spiritual quotient in Indian educational lexicon. Only a few of his achievements can be briefly mentioned in this note.

The summary of the inquiry committee’s findings has been classified under various heads such as nepotism, favouritism, irregular appointments, arbitrariness, recklessness, reign of terror, etc.

Under nepotism, the summary states, “Prof Rajput did not have the slightest hesitation in arranging employments for his near and dear in the NCERT.” The examples given include the appointment of his wife as a professor in politics but, more interestingly, arranging the employment of his son in ICICI by choosing that bank to open an ATM in the NCERT campus. (It may be noted that the State Bank of India was not permitted to open its ATM; also there was a move to transfer employees’ salary account to ICICI). The summary mentions numerous cases of irregular appointments, including extension given to two heads of departments, who as member of the curriculum group had tried to give effect to the communalisation of school curriculum, in complete violation of UGC rules. (After the downfall of the BJP-led government, one of them decided to retire a few days before Dr Rajput’s term was to end while the other continued even after Dr Rajput had left).

JOURNALISTS BRIBED

More interesting cases are those of two journalists. “Appointment of Smt M Namboodiry as a consultant without any verification and without following any procedure was highly objectionable.” “All rules and procedures were cast aside (in her appointment). She was picked out of the blue, appointed arbitrarily, for an ad hoc ‘fee’, to do an unstated job, and in a timeframe whimsically fixed an extended. There was no concern for legality or regularity or even propriety.” This lady is stated to have been paid about Rs 3.5 lakh for services completely unknown. It seems that she was never seen on the NCERT campus for her cheque was collected by her journalist husband. The other was a journalist, Atul Rawat by name, a regular columnist of Organiser. He was appointed a consultant in various capacities, including preparation of history syllabi and textbooks.

Many cases of transfer have been mentioned under various heads such as vindictiveness, reign of terror, etc. One of the first such cases was that of a professor of Hindi (Dr Ram Janam Sharma) who was transferred when he objected to the reprint of a book which abounded in errors. Another case was that of a reader in history (Dr Pritish Acharya) who’ was abruptly transferred… because he dared to offend the director by refusing to make corrections in a history textbook as directed by Dr R K Dixit (one of the two persons who had been given extension illegally). (The reference is to Professor R S Sharma’s Ancient India. Dr Acharya refused to make any change in the text without consulting the author. Even after about a year of the end of Dr Rajput’s reign, the order of Dr Acharya’s transfer has not been withdrawn).

Dr Rajput had introduced ‘informer’ system in what was supposed to have been an academic organisation. The summary refers to the use of official machinery for ‘snooping on who meets whom’. It refers to the case of Dr D K Sharma who was transferred because he was close to a former faculty member of NCERT and the vigilance and security officer had given a report that this former faculty member “regularly visited Dr Sharma in the campus.” Dr Sharma, a reader in sociology, was transferred to NCERT’s college in Mysore which did not have sociology as a subject. (Dr Sharma’s is the only case so far in which the transfer order was annulled even though it happened many months after the Rajput reign had ended. Interestingly, the VSO who had been ‘snooping on who meets whom’ was given an extension).

Some cases have been mentioned under the heading subterfuge. One of these cases refers to one Dr Ambasht. “In the affairs of defalcation of funds in workshops organised by Dr Ambasht, junior functionary were made scapegoats to save Dr Ambasht. When difficulties cropped up in this process a reference was made to the CVO of the MHRD on the file but by deceit the letter was not sent at all. The CVO of the ministry has confirmed in writing that no such reference was ever received.” (The report is silent on why it was necessary to save Dr Ambasht by deceit. He had been chosen by the Parivar to head the National Institute of Open Schooling, popularly known as Open School. He served that institution for his full term with the infamous Dr K G Rastogi as an adviser. At the time of his retirement, it was rumoured that an inquiry had been instituted against him. No one knows what happened to this inquiry.)

The summary says, as mentioned earlier that, “the committee found that 27 complaints have substance whereas the committee recommended action in respect of 101 complaints.” According to a press report, the ministry is considering taking action. There has been no evidence so far about any action. It is not even known if the NCERT authorities have been given the report to take action in cases that fall within their purview, for example in the matter of appointments that have been found to be irregular, cases of harassment and victimisation, also the accomplices. The term ‘witch-hunting’ is being abused to prevent the guilty from being brought to book.

MAKE SATHYAM REPORT PUBLIC

There is an urgent need to make the full report public. Of the complaints received by the Sathyam committee, 69 are stated to have been found baseless. The summary has not mentioned any of these. It is possible that the inquiry committee was not given access to the necessary information in every case. It is presumed that in every case of complaints the committee found baseless, the committee would have given reasons for its conclusion. The complainants have the right to know the reasons and, wherever necessary, question them and request further looking into.

There is another aspect of the inquiry that requires serious consideration. The terms of reference of the committee seem to have precluded any inquiry into the entire question of communalisation of education of which NCERT had become the main instrument. The irregular appointments, authoritarian style of administration, subterfuge, arbitrariness, reign of terror, etc were components of the larger purpose of transforming NCERT into an instrument of the Parivar for the communalisation of school education in the country and bringing about in the process the destruction of NCERT as an academic body. The BJP-led government through its minister of human resource development and his appointee in the NCERT nearly succeeded in its objective. And not only NCERT. This was true of every educational body which was under the control of the union government. This aspect of the functioning of NCERT as well as of other educational bodies requires an inquiry with wider terms of reference than were laid down for the Sathyam committee. The Sathyam committee report does not deal with, as it was not required to, the way the ‘academic’ functions of the NCERT were conducted during the period of Dr M M Joshi-Dr J S Rajput rule.