Michel Danino

Michel Danino
Danino in 2016
Born (1956-06-04) 4 June 1956
France
OccupationAuthor
HonoursPadma Shri (2017)

Michel Danino (born 4 June 1956) is a French-born Indian author. He currently serves as the chairperson of the National Council of Educational Research and Training's (NCERT) social science curriculum. A proponent of Hindutva, he has been criticised for engaging in historical negationism.

Biography

Michel Danino was born on 4 June 1956 in France. Danino spent a few years in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, before shifting to the Nilgiri Mountains, where he resided for two decades. In 2003, he settled near Coimbatore and adopted Indian citizenship.[1]

He currently serves as the hairperson of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) curriculum committee for social science. He is also a visiting professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the IIT Gandhinagar.[2] In 2017, the Indian government, under prime minister Narendra Modi, conferred upon him the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award.[3]

Works and views

He currently serves as the Chairperson of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) curriculum committee for social science.[4]

Since 2011, he is a visiting professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) teaching wide range of subjects on Indian culture and civilisation. He was instrumental in setting up the Archaeological Sciences Centre at IIT-Gn.[5][6][4]

He authored various books, including the following:[6]

Sarasvati River

Danino wrote The Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati in 2010, arguing against longstanding scholarly consensus. In the book, Danino sought to connect the Hindu mythological Sarasvati River, first mentioned in the Rigveda, an ancient Hindu text, with the current Ghaggar-Hakra River.[7] Danino has defended the inclusion of names such as "Sindhu-Sarasvati" and "Indus-Sarasvati", as alternatives for the Indus Valley Civilisation, in NCERT Textbooks.[8] He has argued that the drying of the Sarasvati River was the cause of Indus Valley Civilisation's collapse.[9]

Indigenous Aryanism

In The Invasion that Never was, published by Danino in 1996, he argued against the academically accepted view that the Indo-Aryans originated in Central Asia, before migrating to India. Furthermore, he has falsely said, "No ancient or medieval Indian text would support the Aryan invasion theory" and "It is genetically proven that Aryans and Dravidians belong to the same race."[9]

Reception

A proponent of Hindutva, while the BJP-Government of India honored him in 2017 with the Padma award, the fourth highest Indian civilian award, for his contribution to literature and education,[10] he has been criticised for his sectarian scholarship and historical negationism.[11][12][13]

Historian Peter Heehs' opinion of one of Danino's works, Sri Aurobindo and Indian Civilization, is that it was lacking in linguistic knowledge, and made up of attacks on colonial orientalists and half-informed invocations of nationalist orientalists. Heehs also criticized Danino's other works for appropriating Sri Aurobindo in his campaign against the Indo-Aryan migrations, and for distorting Aurobindo's speculative views as assertions. Heehs added that Danino selectively cherry-picked quotes from his draft-manuscripts and ignored his published works, which were far more nuanced.[14]

He headed the NCERT committee which proposed controversial changes to the NCERT social science textbook, presenting the Maratha and Mughal rulers in a less favorable way. In a interview with ThePrint, Michel Danino denied ideological interference, explaining that the committee's goal was to present a more honest, unsanitised history by addressing "darker chapters" and complex historical figures like Akbar-whose youthful brutality is detailed in his own memoir, Akbarnama, while including a disclaimer that nobody today should be blamed for past events and never using the term "dark ages."[15]

See also

  • Indigenous Aryanists

References

  1. ^ Pande Daniel, Vaihayasi (22 May 2010). "The Sarasvati was more sacred than Ganga". Rediff.com. Retrieved 8 August 2011. Technically, I am not a 'foreigner': I adopted Indian citizenship some years ago.
  2. ^ Iftikhar, Fareeha (24 August 2024). "'Keeping Indian civilisation accomplishments out of school syllabus wrong ideology,' says Michel Danino". ThePrint.
  3. ^ "Ministry of Home Affairs Press Note" (PDF). Padma Awards. 25 January 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 January 2017.
  4. ^ a b Iftikhar, Fareeha (24 August 2024). "'Keeping Indian civilisation accomplishments out of school syllabus wrong ideology,' says Michel Danino". ThePrint.
  5. ^ IIT-Gn professor receives Padma Shri award, Times of India, 3 Apr 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d e f 'The past has a knack of exploding in our faces', Rediff, 19 September 2018.
  7. ^ "TOI Crest: Quick review". The Times of India. 29 May 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  8. ^ Chopra, Ritika (20 August 2024). "Calling Harappan Civilization Sindhu Sarasvati in new textbooks is based on established scholarship, not politics: NCERT Social Science panel head". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 20 August 2024.
  9. ^ a b "'Indian history was distorted by the British'". Hindustan Times. 1 February 2013.
  10. ^ "Ministry of Home Affairs Press Note" (PDF). Padma Awards. 25 January 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 January 2017.
  11. ^ Guha, Sudeshna (2005). "Negotiating Evidence: History, Archaeology and the Indus Civilisation". Modern Asian Studies. 39 (2): 399–426. doi:10.1017/S0026749X04001611. ISSN 0026-749X. JSTOR 3876625. S2CID 145463239.
  12. ^ Chadha, Ashish (1 February 2011). "Conjuring a river, imagining civilisation: Saraswati, archaeology and science in India". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 45 (1): 55–83. doi:10.1177/006996671004500103. ISSN 0069-9667. S2CID 144701033.
  13. ^ Bhatt, Chetan (1 January 2000). "Dharmo rakshati rakshitah : Hindutva movements in the UK". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 23 (3): 559–593. doi:10.1080/014198700328999. ISSN 0141-9870. S2CID 144085595.
  14. ^ Heehs, Peter (2003). "Shades of Orientalism: Paradoxes and Problems in Indian Historiography". History and Theory. 42 (2): 169–195. doi:10.1111/1468-2303.00238. ISSN 0018-2656. JSTOR 3590880.
  15. ^ ‘Honest history, not ideology’—NCERT social science panel chief on changes in Class 8 textbook, ThePrint, 1 Aug 2025.
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