The panel of three historians appointed by the Human Resource Development Ministry today grappled with a large number of social science textbooks they obtained from private publishers.Tomorrow, when they give in their recommendations, they will try to keep the textbooks taught during former minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s tenure as far as possible. Apart from books prepared by the Delhi State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the Madhya Pradesh-based NGO Ekalavya, the other textbooks the experts had a close look were those brought out by private publishers like Holy Faith, Arya, Frank and Goel Publishing. Professor S. Settar, the panel’s ancient Indian history expert, had to take part in deliberations despite a very sore throat because the deadline for recommendations is tomorrow. When the three historians, Settar, Professor J.S.Grewal (medieval expert) and Barun De (modern specialist) met again this evening, it was not clear if they would be able to complete their choice by tomorrow. But the historians had already divided their work. Sources close to the experts said that the three historians were not being able to find too many good books for the Class XI-XII syllabus. If they don’t have too many options, then they might just have to revert to the texts dumped by Joshi — including those written by Professor Bipan Chandra, Professor Satish Chandra and Professor Arjun Dev.According to sources, the panel will do its best to decide on the short term text material by tomorrow morning itself. After informing the ministry, Professors De and Grewal leave for Kolkata and Chandigarh respectively. Professor Settar will stay back.
