Three years into the first term of the Narendra Modi government, several members of an outfit associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were appointed in key positions at the Indian Council for Historical Research in Delhi.
The appointment of members of the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana, or ABISY, was part of the Sangh Parivar’s stated objective of “rewriting” Indian history. The ABISY itself is housed in the Delhi office of the RSS.
While there is little doubt about the ideological transformation of ICHR led by handpicked members of the RSS outfit, what has gone hand in hand are allegations of corruption and financial misdemeanours.
The grave charges have forced the Indian government to take notice.
Earlier this month, the Central Vigilance Commission indicted four members of the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana for dubious financial dealings at the ICHR.
The CVC has advised the Ministry of Education to start penalty proceedings against the four, as well as 11 other current and former officials.
The problems at the institution came to light after two complaints alleging irregularities in its finances, appointments and promotions were filed with the Lokpal of India in 2022 and 2023, show government documents seen by Scroll.
This led to parallel investigations by the CVC and the Ministry of Education, including an internal audit of ICHR’s books by the ministry in 2023. The audit found financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 14.03 crore, including Rs 7.4 crore in unrecovered grants to scholars who had not submitted their work to the body. The audit flagged a “reckless spending spree” by senior officials – a striking example of which is the council’s decision to splurge Rs 30 lakh on the publication of a book edited by senior ICHR officials.
“There is no transparency in decision making and there is large-scale violation of GFR [General Financial Rules] and other rules and regulations,” concluded the audit, seen by Scroll.
The officials in the dock
On May 2, the Central Vigilance Commission advised the Ministry of Education to start penalty proceedings against 15 current and former officials of the ICHR.
One of them is Saurabh Kumar Mishra, a deputy director at ICHR, who is also the “head of publicity” of ABISY. Notably, Mishra is the nephew of the chief of the RSS outfit, Balmukund Pandey.
Another person indicted by the CVC is Om Jee Upadhyay, the director of research and administration, who also holds the most powerful position at ICHR – that of the member secretary. Upadhyay is a “senior writer” at ABISY, according to its website.
Upadhyay is often part of debates on TV news channels, usually defending the government’s positions.
The CVC also recommended penalty proceedings against Jagdish Singh, the deputy registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Narendra Shukla, the head of research and publication at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
Both Singh and Shukla were part of a key decision-making committee at ICHR. Shukla edited ABISY’s journal, Itihas Darpan, till 2022, and organised events by the outfit.
The CVC also advised the government to probe two former ICHR member secretaries over the irregularities during their tenure – Umesh Ashok Kadam and Kumar Ratnam.
Kadam, who now teaches at JNU, is also an ABISY member. His JNU profile says he joined the outfit in 2022, the year he became ICHR member secretary.
The CVC’s advice to initiate penalty proceedings is recommendatory but not binding on the government. If the government accepts the advice, the disciplinary authorities at ICHR will issue chargesheets to the officials named by the CVC.
Raghuvendra Tanwar, the ICHR chairman, told Scroll that the disciplinary authority at ICHR has issued the chargesheets, which shows that “the matter is being handled with all seriousness”.
Scroll contacted Kumar Ratnam, Jagdish Singh and Narendra Shukla for their response to the CVC’s strictures. The story will be updated if they respond.
The outfit
Established in 1972, the Indian Council for Historical Research is a government-funded institution that funds and publishes historical research with the aim of fostering “objective and scientific writing of history”.
ICHR comes under the Ministry of Education.
Since 2017, several members of the ABISY, which describes its function as “recompiling the history from the Mahabharata period to the present time on the basis of Indian chronology”, have been appointed to the council.
In January 2022, this reporter had reported in Newslaundry on how ABISY functionaries with inadequate credentials were hired at ICHR in 2018, followed by the entry of their friends and relatives at the institution.
In June 2022 and July 2023, the Lokpal of India received two anonymous complaints against ICHR officials.
The 2022 complaint, seen by Scroll, levelled 14 allegations against five officials. It alleged wrongful and illegal appointments at the institution, violation of rules in organising seminars, research and procurement of electronic gadgets without due diligence.
The complaint also alleged “nepotism”, or the “appointment of blood relatives” at the institution, especially members of the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana, or ABISY.
The 2023 complaint added that ABISY’s “special ideology” controls the ICHR “with intent to loot government-funded money in a planned manner” with support from “powerful persons”.
The Lokpal complaints travelled to the Ministry of Education, via the CVC. In March 2023, the ministry conducted a special audit of ICHR’s books to investigate some of the allegations.
‘Serious irregularity’
The special audit found irregularities to the tune of Rs 14.03 crore at ICHR between financial years 2021-22 and 2022-23. It flagged 18 instances: 16 pertained to financial dealings and two to appointments and promotions.
It observed a “reckless spending spree neglecting rules and regulations” during the tenure of Umesh Ashok Kadam, the member secretary between August 2022 and May 2023.
The most prominent irregularity was the disbursement of Rs 6.26 crore to 397 scholars who had not submitted their final work to ICHR. According to the body’s research funding rules, these scholars were liable to refund the grant to ICHR.
“No recovery of Rs 6,26,19,288 has been affected from 397 scholars as above provision of rules have not been followed by ICHR authorities,” said the audit.
Similarly, an additional Rs 1.09 crore in project grants had not been recovered from 85 project directors whose work remains incomplete, in violation of ICHR rules.
Kadam also ordered repair and renovation work worth Rs 2.55 crore at the ICHR building “without the approval of competent authority” and without adhering to rules and regulations, the audit found, describing it as a “serious irregularity”.
Deputy director Saurabh Kumar Mishra also finds a mention in the audit. He, along with Kadam, awarded the work of creating an e-office application for ICHR to the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited, or BECIL, a body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The decision to approach BECIL contradicted the ICHR general council’s decision that the work should be awarded to the National Informatics Centre, or NIC, says the audit.
According to the audit, Mishra claimed that NIC had sought time to develop the application, even though “no documentary proof of discussions with NIC is available in file”.
The audit found that the work was haphazardly awarded to BECIL with 100% advanced payment, which was against laid down financial rules.
BECIL, in turn, roped in a firm called Iforaa Private Limited for Rs 12 lakh to provide “accessibility consultancy services”.
Firm documents filed with the Registrar of Companies shows that Iforaa’s directors are business associates of Kiram DM, a businessman linked to the RSS.
Kiran is the director of Sewa Bridge Foundation along with Keshav Govind Parande, the secretary of Sewa International, an overseas outfit of the Sangh. He has previously held top positions in Hindu Seva Pratishthana and Youth for Sewa, both affiliated with the RSS.
That’s not all. Iforaa’s balance sheets show that the work awarded by ICHR is the firm’s only business dealing since it was incorporated in January 2021. Between 2020-21 and 2023-24, the firm reported only Rs 12 lakh in operating revenue.
An executive at Iforaa said that the firm did not get the ICHR-BECIL contract because of Kiran’s links to the Sangh. “He is not a shareholder or employee at the firm,” the executive said. “We received the contract through an open tender process at BECIL.”
Scroll sent queries to BECIL about the deal awarded to them. The story will be updated if they respond.
Mishra directed Scroll’s questions to the disciplinary authorities at ICHR. “My comments would be against the rules,” he said.
‘Mother of Democracy’
The violation of financial rules and due process at ICHR is a running theme throughout the audit.
One of them involves a book called India, the Mother of Democracy, edited by Kadam and ICHR chairman Raghuvendra Tanwar.
The audit found that in July 2022, the Research Projects Committee at the institution had sanctioned Rs 20 lakh for the book and nominated four publishers.
The then Research Projects Committee of ICHR had four members – chairman Tanwar and members C.I. Issac, Himanshu Chaturvedi and Shridhar Madhukar.
Here, too, the influence of ABISY was evident. Isaac was at the time a member at ABISY and Chaturvedi is a former president of the ABISY’s Gorakhpur chapter.
“The committee had given free hand to pick up any of the…[four] publishers to the member secretary without even giving a chance to other three to give competitive quotations,” says the audit.
The audit found that Kadam chose a publisher called Kitabwale and spent Rs 30.1 lakh on the book’s publication – exceeding the budget by Rs 10.1 lakh.
A company profile of Kitabwale mostly contains photos of its managing director, Prashant Jain, with senior functionaries of the RSS. Jain told Scroll that he was not a member of the Sangh Parivar, but aligned with it ideologically. “The irregularities are the concern of those at ICHR who took decisions on the book’s publication,” he said. “We simply published the book as we were told to.”
The audit notes that ICHR and Kitabwale set the price of the book at Rs 5,000. “It is not mentioned anywhere in the agreement or in file how the sale price of the book was worked out,” it adds.
The institution spent Rs 25 lakh to procure 1,000 copies of the book at 50% discount. It sold 26 copies, gave 94 copies to the Prime Minister’s Office for free, and 880 copies remained unsold at the time of the audit.
Another Rs 5.1 lakh was spent to pay authors and proofreaders.
The audit concluded that the “publication of the book without adhering to rules and transparency is a serious irregularity”.
In May 2023, soon after the audit results were shared with ICHR, Kadam left the body without completing his three-year long tenure as member secretary. His tenure lasted nine months.
An official at the institution, who spoke to Scroll on the condition of anonymity, said that Kadam quit on the orders of the Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Kadam did not respond to multiple calls and messages for comment.
Appointments and promotions
In addition to financial irregularities, senior officials at ICHR were also under scrutiny for appointments and promotions.
The ministry’s audit zeroed in on two officials.
One of them is deputy director Dharmendra Singh, who had been promoted from a section officer to “assistant director” in 2017 – a position that did not exist. Moreover, Dharmendra was promoted to deputy director in 2022, for which he did not have the required experience, the audit says.
The other official is section officer Sachin Kumar Jha. Jha was hired as an assistant in 2018 and promoted to a section officer in 2021. This was done despite him not meeting the age criteria or having the required experience, the audit adds.
Both Dharmendra and Jha have been recommended for major penalty proceedings by the CVC, along with one Davinder Singh, an assistant at ICHR.
A second official at ICHR told Scroll on the condition of anonymity that Dharmendra, Davinder and Jha were promoted to their positions because they made it easier for ICHR’s senior management, especially the clique from ABISY, to spend the institution’s money without any checks.
“Dharmendra and Davinder were in key administrative positions to sanction the money,” said the second official. “They prioritised files that the ABISY people wanted to move quickly.”
The first official, who is familiar with the CVC probe, told Scroll that director Upadhyay and former member secretary Kumar Ratnam came under scrutiny for approving Jha’s appointment and promotion at ICHR.
The CVC has recommended minor penalty proceedings against Upadhyay and suggested a probe into Ratnam’s “adverse role” in Jha’s appointment and promotion.
Scroll contacted Dharmendra Singh and Davinder Singh for their response to the CVC’s decision. The story will be updated if they respond.
The recruitment firm
In late 2018, ICHR had hired a private firm to conduct recruitment exams.
The Lokpal complaint from 2022 alleges that this firm was selected “without following e-tender process and GFR [general financial rules]”, adding that it had led to the appointment of blood relatives and “nepotism”.
ICHR documents from the time show the institution recruited 28 people after the exams, including Jha and Davinder.
Jha is a close associate of ABISY chief Pandey, the second ICHR official alleged, pointing to several pictures of the two on Jha’s social media profiles before his recruitment.
Jha told Scroll that he knew Balmukund Pandey “like I know many people”, adding: “You should not pose your questions to me but to those who hired me.”
In April 2023, the CVC investigated how ICHR hired the private firm and partly confirmed the allegation in the Lokpal complaint. It found that the firm was contracted without the due process of bidding on the government’s e-marketplace portal, called GeM, which ensures efficient, transparent and competitive bidding.
The private firm was paid Rs 89.18 lakh by ICHR for the recruitment exams, according to a Right to Information reply.
In May 2024, the vigilance body identified three officials responsible for roping in the firm: Dharmendra Singh, Om Jee Upadhyay, and then member secretary Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla, now the vice-president of ABISY.
Upadhyay said that the CVC had closed the matter. In a written response seen by Scroll, Upadhyay told the body that the lapse had occurred because of “lack of awareness” of the GeM portal by the ICHR senior management.
Upadhyay, Shukla and Dharmendra were let off without a penalty in September 2024.
