Opinion | Michel Danino: The Quiet Giant Of Our Time

Danino has created a substantial and qualitative scholarly legacy in his own lifetime and continues quietly on his chosen path away from public glare, any temptations of celebrity

Michel Danino, in many ways, is reminiscent of the gurus of the ancient Indian parampara. Unassuming and quiet, yet a powerhouse of scholarship, which is matched only by his dignity and unimpeachable intellectual integrity.

I have had the immense fortune of learning from him for nearly two decades. On the several occasions I have met him, the experience has always been enriching, fruitful and, above all, ennobling.

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In fact, if at all I have managed to contribute in any meaningful way in the area of Bharatavarsha’s history and cultural heritage, I owe a huge debt of gratitude — which I cannot repay — to Danino’s stellar body of work.

The areas of his scholarly investigations are daunting even for professional scholars — exposing the bogus Aryan Invasion Theory, tracing the trajectory of the Saraswati River, archaeology, ancient Indian knowledge traditions, nuances of the Puranas and epics, prehistoric studies, Harappan art and town planning, marine archaeology….

From a larger perspective, Danino has created a substantial and qualitative scholarly legacy in his own lifetime and continues quietly on his chosen path away from the public glare, away from any temptations of celebrity.

I speak from personal experience.

The distinguished positions he has held — most notably as Visiting Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar and, lately, as Chairperson of the NCERT — are not only entirely deserving but reflective of his eminence.

The Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognisance of a chapter on judicial corruption in an eighth-standard NCERT textbook, has meted out rather high-handed treatment to Danino.

In many ways, it is a tacit admission of its ignorance of his distinction.

There are legions of students and scholars who literally venerate Danino.

Without exaggeration, Danino — a Frenchman by birth and an Indian citizen for over three decades — is one of the finest cultural patriots of India.

He is deeply anchored in the philosophy and ideals of Sri Aurobindo, one of twentieth-century India’s greatest mystic-saints.

To put this in context, Danino has actually rescued the NCERT by lifting it out of the morass into which the Leftist establishment had sunk it.

Arun Shourie’s Eminent Historians, a classic exposé of the NCERT (apart from the Humanities department of the HRD ministry), is perhaps the most devastating critique of this morass to date.

But the late scholar N.S. Rajaram supplies an even more stunning data point that Shourie’s book does not contain.

He mentions how Nurul Hasan — Indira Gandhi’s favourite Education Minister — ran the NCERT like a czar and the consequences thereof.

“NIEPA is a particularly influential body that administers and oversees educational policy in India.

NCERT controls textbooks and other materials that are used in schools and colleges in India…

Through his control of these two powerful bodies, Nurul Hasan became the education czar in India…

A single example should help give an idea of the dangers of this centralised feudal educational policy.

For over 20 years, H.S. Khan — Nurul Hasan’s favourite — headed the history and sociology division of the NCERT.

He is known to hold the view that India became civilised only through the introduction of Islam.

This, incidentally, is also the official Pakistani line…

This is taking the Aryan invasion idea a giant step backwards…

In 1986, on Khan’s initiative, textbook writers in all the states were directed to change the version of history to accord with the anti-Hindu model."

Yet not one court back then took umbrage at these flagrant distortions of history done at the behest of sitting ministers and high-ranking bureaucrats.

The reforms to history textbooks under Danino’s leadership were long overdue and are in the right direction.

Yet the Supreme Court has taken severe objection to one solitary chapter dealing with judicial corruption and has used its power disproportionately against a widely respected scholar and academic.

Its wording is troubling, to say the least.

“… we have no reason to doubt that Professor Michel Danino, along with Ms Diwakar and Mr Alok Prasanna Kumar, either does not have reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary or they deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the facts in order to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary….

There is no reason why such persons should be associated in any manner with the preparation of curriculum or finalisation of textbooks….

We direct the Government of India and all states/UTs/universities etc. to disassociate the three of them forthwith and not assign any responsibility involving public funds."

Since my own schooldays, there have been any number of chapters in textbooks dealing with political and bureaucratic corruption.

Yet, as far as I can remember, there were no cases or punitive court actions against their authors.

To state the obvious, judicial corruption is a reality.

One is reminded of the recent case of Justice Yashwant Varma, which sent nationwide shockwaves and led to impeachment proceedings against him.

Omitting the mention of uncomfortable truths — judicial corruption in this case — will not make them disappear.

One is tempted to use the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction, but this issue is perhaps one of the clearest signs of the times we live in.

Or rather, an illustration of a timeless truth of history beautifully captured in the Mahabharata:

sulabhāḥ puruṣā rājan satataṃ priyavādinaḥ |

apriyasya tu pathyasya vaktā śrotā ca durlabhaḥ ||

“O King, it is easy to find people who always say pleasant things.

But it is extremely rare to find someone who speaks the ‘unpleasant but beneficial’ truth, and even rarer to find someone willing to listen to it."

The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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