Four RSS members SC Mittal, Nikhilesh Guha, Ishwar Sharan Vishwakarma and Narayan Rao find place in top panel of ICHR

NEW DELHI: Four members of the governing body of India’s top historical body are office-bearers of an RSS-affiliated organisation.

The HRD ministry has appointed 18 new members to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) for a term of three years, top sources told ET. Of these, four historians — SC Mittal, Nikhilesh Guha, Ishwar Sharan Vishwakarma and Narayan Rao — are office bearers of the RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (ABISY). The new panel will be officially notified in the next few days.

Mittal is the national president of ABISY, while Narayan Rao is its national vice-president, Vishwakarma is the all-India general secretary and Guha heads its West Bengal chapter. ET had first reported on January 14 that ICHR Chief Y Sudershan Rao had proposed names of Guha, Rao and Vishwakarma, among other, for the council’s membership. The government, according to sources, has accepted this suggestion and also added Mittal who was an ICHR member during the NDA-I regime.

Sudershan Rao was heading ABISY’s Andhra Pradesh chapter when he was appointed as ICHR’s boss. The intra-academia controversy that followed his appointment is likely to repeat itself with the inclusion of another four RSS history wing academics to the top research body.

ET could not reach HRD minister Smriti Irani for her reaction. Higher education secretary S N Mohanty directed this reporter to joint secretary SP Goyal for an official reaction. Goyal said he was not in town and hence could not comment on the matter.

Narayan Rao, 73, who retired from the history department of Berhampur University in Odisha in 2001, has authored books and research papers on the history of Odisha. He was the president of ABISY’s Odisha chapter from 2004 to 2012, after which he was appointed as the national vice president. Like the ICHR chief, he is also in favour of using Mahabharata and Ramayana as historical sources for research.

Guha, 68, who retired from the history department of Kalyani University in West Bengal, calls himself a "Mysore specialist". He has also researched on Bengal’s cultural history and has written a book on Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, founder of Bharatiya Jan Sangh which eventually transformed into the BJP.

The ministry has also approved the names of historian Sachidanand Sahai who, along with Mittal, was a member of the ICHR during the first NDA government.

That apart, author Michel Danino, RS Agarwal, a professor at Chaudhury Charan Singh university in Meerut, Rahman Ali, former head department at Vikram University in Ujjain, and Baidyanath Labh, an expert on Buddhist studies, will also be on the ICHR panel.

Eight historians of the old panel from the UPA –II era, including archaeologist Shereen Ratnakar, historians Hari Shankar Vasudevan of Calcutta University and BD Chattopadhyay of JNU were eligible for re-nomination for another term of three years, but have not been included in the list approved by the ministry.

The term of the previous council had ended on December 22, 2014.