Michel Danino | |
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 Danino in 2016 | |
| Born | Honfleur, France |
| Occupation | Author |
| Honours | Padma Shri (2017) |
Michel Danino is an author who 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.
Michel Danino was born in Honfleur, France. Danino spent a few years in Auroville, Tamil Nadu, before shifting to the Nilgiri Mountains in 1982, where he resided for two decades. [1] In 2003, he settled near Coimbatore. In an interview, he said that he had adopted Indian citizenship. [2]
He currently serves as the chairperson 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 IIT Gandhinagar. [3] In 2017, the Indian government, under prime minister Narendra Modi, conferred upon him the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award. [4]
Danino's works and views are influnced by Sri Aurobindo, who speculated against the Indo-Aryan migrations. [5] Danino translated Mother's Agenda , the 13 volume biography of Mirra Alfassa, from French to English. [5] Sri Aurobindo and India's Rebirth (2018) describes Danino's views on the development of Aurobindo's thought. [5]
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." [6]
Danino wrote The Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvatī in 2010, arguing against longstanding scholarly consensus. In the book, Danino sought to connect the Hindu mythological Saraswati 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-Saraswati" and "Indus-Saraswati", as alternatives for the Indus Valley Civilisation, in NCERT Textbooks. [8] He has argued that the drying of the Saraswati River was the cause of Indus Valley Civilisation's collapse. [6]
A proponent of Hindutva, he has been criticised for his sectarian scholarship and historical negationism. [9] [10] [11]
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 criticised 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. [12]
As head of NCERT’s social science committee, Danino has overseen the presentation of a gentle and sanitised version of Indian history. For instance, under his leadership, the Class 8 social science textbooks portray the Maratha Empire in a favourable light, while depicting the Mughal Empire highly negatively. Critics have characterised the changes as an ideological move. In an interview with ThePrint, Danino denied any ideological bias. In the same interview, he said, "We avoid all unpleasantness, thinking perhaps that this is going to, you know, traumatise the student and so on." [13]
Technically, I am not a 'foreigner': I adopted Indian citizenship some years ago.
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