ON February 26, 2026, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Surya Kant launched a scathing reprimand over portions of a Class 8 social science textbook. “Deep-rooted conspiracy”, “very, very calculated move”, “reckless, irresponsible, motivated, contemptuous conduct and manner” were some of the phrases used by the CJI. “They fired the gun and the judiciary is bleeding today,” he said, and declared that “heads must roll.”

The book, entitled 'Exploring Society: India and Beyond', was released on February 24, by its publisher which is none other than the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Education. The book was put together between 2023 and 2025 and was to be introduced into the curriculum in 2026 as part of NCERT's revised textbooks for Classes 1 to 8 under the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023 and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

A chapter in this book, titled “The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society”, includes a statement which says that corruption, a massive backlog of cases, and the lack of an adequate number of judges are among the challenges faced by the judicial system. This is what the apex court was furious about.

Subsequently, everybody on the government’s side beat a retreat – from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta (who was present in the Court), to the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan who expressed regret, and even PM Modi who was reported to be “unhappy” with the book and seeking accountability.

FULL OF IRONIES

The whole episode is teeming with ironies. Let’s start with the textbook itself. There is a huge, multilayered architecture in the NCERT and associated committees/groups that deals with textbooks. There is a body called the National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee (NSTC) which sets up Curricular Area Groups (CAG) which in turn sets up ‘development teams’ that consider drafts of textbooks written by academics or outside experts. The drafts reportedly get reviewed by the NCERT faculty, CAG, and NSTC itself before approval.

It is difficult to believe that this army of academic experts failed to see that certain formulations could be objected to by the judiciary. Hence, it would be fair to say that, broadly speaking, everybody agreed. This is all the more reasonable to accept because other textbooks/chapters (like the Class 7 textbook) carry even more trenchant criticism of corruption in electoral process and political establishment. The issue of corruption in judiciary comes as part of this overall approach – that all the institutions are rife with corruption and that its cleansing is a national necessity.

It is here that a key fact has to be noted – most members of these committees and groups, and those that man the NCERT’s key hierarchical positions, are sympathetic to, or perhaps, even supporters of the RSS/BJP. They have been packed into these committees, groups, posts since 2014 when the Modi-led BJP came to power.

So – the conclusion is inescapable that the textbook’s critique of the judiciary as suffering from corruption among other afflictions, is the view of the RSS. This is not a surprising thing. The RSS, and its political wing BJP, have been occupying the moral high ground for some time claiming themselves to be crusaders against corruption, and upholding themselves as fighters against ‘dirty’ politics. Of course, this stance is completely fraudulent as can be seen from the series of scams and trickery the Modi government has presided over – from Electoral Bonds to Rafale.

Typically, the RSS/BJP apparatchiks now filling up the bureaucracies of various institutions fail to realise that other parts of the state architecture – even those who are aligned with them – may not like their views. This is what appears to have happened in the textbook case. Zealous RSS supporters, who have been given a free hand to chop and change textbooks in line with the RSS thinking (more about that later), have ended up going a step too far and hurting the sentiments of the top court itself.

But the story doesn’t end here. What about the other side, viz., the judiciary?

SELECTIVE OUTRAGE

Can it be said that the judiciary is completely free of corruption? This is surely not the case. Only recently, there was the case of Justice Verma of the Delhi High Court in which sacks full of cash were discovered in the premises of his official residence, confirmed and videographed in a Supre Court’s own internal investigation. What possible legal justification could there be for presence of currency stuffed in sacks? Though no judicial order has been finalised yet, the matter indicates corruption somewhere within the judicial echelons. Justice Verma has denied all the allegations.

Over the years, there have been several cases of allegations, resignations, controversies and counter charges over judicial officers at various levels in the behemoth that is Indian judiciary. While it cannot be said that corruption is permeated everywhere in judiciary but nor can it be denied or brushed away completely.

In fact, CJI Surya Kant himself was accused of corruption in 2019 during his tenure as chief justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court. The matter was investigated and reported by Caravan magazine in great detail. “In 2012, a real-estate agent accused the judge of having participated in illegal property dealings involving undervaluation and cash transactions worth several crores. In 2017, a prisoner in Punjab filed a complaint listing eight cases heard by Kant, and alleged that the judge had accepted bribes to grant bail in these,” the magazine wrote in its January 30, 2019, issue. The report has never been challenged to the best of our knowledge, and justice Surya Kant was elevated to the Supre Court subsequently.

This may perhaps explain the aggravation felt by the CJI on the textbook’s transgression. Another factor could be that it was a textbook which would have a much wider impact than some article somewhere. As the CJI himself put it, “The book will not remain confined to students only. Its contents are bound to travel from teacher to pupil to parent and to the entire society, including the next generation… It may have a lasting impact on judicial independence”.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER TEXTBOOKS?

Be that as it may, one cannot but note that the Supreme Court, the custodian of Constitutional values and principles, has not taken any suo moto cognisance of the wholesale changes in textbooks brought in after 2014 with the view of rewriting Indian history by saffronising it. Whole chapters on Muslim periods have been removed, references to various luminaries altered or replaced by others, even Darwin’s theory of evolution and the Periodic Table have been omitted from textbooks across the board. These changes will not have effect on impressionable minds? They will not impact the whole society? Will not the erosion of secular values – a Constitutional principle that the apex court is pledged to uphold – become a reality through these changes?

But sadly – indeed tragically – the Court has had no concern with this. The same people have however invited the Court’s wrath by accusing the judiciary of corruption.

It appears that the Supreme Court is worried about the people’s faith in the judiciary. But the Court’s record in maintaining the faith has been patchy and erratic. One can point to several decisions where the Court could have dealt with matters much more astutely and readily in order to maintain the Constitutional sanctity of secularism, democracy and federalism. The case of abrogation of Art.370 comes to mind which is still pending in the courts. Recently, there was an egregious case of a video of Assam’s BJP chief minister pretending to shoot at Muslims, but the Court batted it away to the Gauhati High Court. Even in the famous Ayodhya case, the Court went against its own thinking and logic to hand over the whole site to the Hindu parties. There are many other such instances – which is to say that the defence of Constitution and its foundational principles needs much more vigilance and application than seen now.

PEOPLE’S VIEW

The people definitely see the system’s rot with worry and trepidation. This includes all the branches of the State. But the mistrust is greatest towards the ruling parties that espouse interests of the corporate sections and big landowning classes. The greatest fear is that increasingly, the system is getting tilted towards the rich, leaving behind the poor to fend for themselves, notwithstanding various handouts doled out periodically. Corruption is seen as a direct product and function of increased privatisation of large parts of the economy as well as the government structure. The people also know that the biggest source of corruption is at the top levels of society, which usually remains untouched by all the outrage expressed elsewhere. Textbooks are irrelevant in this.