Virtually rejecting the Thorat committee recommendations to delete over 21 cartoons in NCERT textbooks,the National Monitoring Committee today expressed deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with the procedure and criteria adopted by the committee. Immediate changes to be made in NCERT textbooks in the light of the cartoon debate in Parliament and outside will now be very few and thoroughly thought out,sources confirmed. These changes will be decided by the NCERT Director and the Textbook Development Committee that has drafted these textbooks. Terming it as a hastily put together document that lacked the degree of refinement and intellectual depth to share space with other academic studies/reports in libraries and archives,the Monitoring Committee is expected to shoot off a formal response to the Thorat Committee on its report early next week. Noting the intellectual labour that went into the making of the textbooks,the Monitoring committee felt that it was unfair to judge and effect changes in these textbooks on the basis of a report hurriedly drafted. Responding to the Thorat committee report as well as the public debate on the issue which has changed the context on the usage of cartoons in textbooks,it has been decided by the Monitoring Committee that some changes need to be effected in the textbooks at the earliest possible and the NCERT in consultation with the Textbook Development committee will do so. There is a lot of unhappiness about the Thorat committee report. a response will be sent to the committee, Prof Mrinal Miri who chairs the National Monitoring Committee told The Indian Express. The six-member Thorat committee,set up by the government to review NCERT textbooks after MPs termed several cartoons in these as offensive,has recommended deletion of 21 cartoons and modification of captions and text in several places. One of the committee members,Prof M S S Pandian,filed a dissent note and a separate report in which he has said that the textbooks need no changes. Several academics,however,are upset with the Thorat committee as they feel that it failed to follow due procedure and did not acknowledge the views of experts consulted. The NMC also recommended that a periodic process of review of NCERT textbooks and other NCERT activities should be initiated. A sub-committee headed by Prof Zoya Hasan will help the NMC formulate a formal response to the Thorat Committee report. Prof Yogendra Yadv,Chief Advisor to the Textbook Development Committee,welcomed the decision.
