Editorial: Modi govt distorting history

Instead of encouraging critical thinking and genuine historical analysis, the present attempt seeks to rewrite history, turning textbooks as tools for promoting a specific ideology

School textbooks have become easy targets for spreading ideological propaganda. Unfortunately, the BJP is in the pursuit of distorting history to suit its political agenda. This would do irreparable damage to our ability to understand our past without bias, besides polluting the minds of the young and impressionable. Selective deletion or tweaking of historical events and presenting a biased perspective on important phases in the country’s history have been the preferred template of the NDA government when making changes to the school curriculum. The recently released NCERT history textbooks are full of factual errors and pedagogical issues. The main problem lies in singling out Muslim rulers and portraying them as brutal and cruel while deliberately omitting the brutalities of other rulers. It must be pointed out that violence, destruction of enemy territories and coercion were the norm across monarchies in medieval India. Similarly, the destruction of temples was not ordered by Muslim invaders alone. By skipping the histories of powerful women rulers like Razia Sultan and Nur Jahan, the NCERT has missed an opportunity to teach students about how women negotiated power relations and overcame the challenges of ruling over a male-dominated society. Even contemporary instances of violence, such as the Partition riots, demolition of the Babri Masjid, the 1992 riots and the Godhra riots of 2002, have been removed from the NCERT textbooks for Classes 11 and 12. Instead of shaping textbooks as tools that encourage critical thinking and historical analysis, the present attempt is to rewrite history and use textbooks as tools to spread a particular ideology.

This is being done by selective omission of certain instances of violence, erasing the histories of powerful women, introducing preconceived communal notions vis-à-vis the Muslim rulers, and moving away from established academic research. Another instance of mischievous misrepresentation appears in the Class 8 history textbook pertaining to the history of jizya, a tax paid by the non-Muslim population that exempted them from military service and made the state responsible for their protection. The new textbook states that it was an incentive for the non-Muslim population to convert. All references to Mughals and Delhi Sultanate have been dropped from Class 7 NCERT textbooks, while chapters on Indian dynasties, ‘sacred geography,’ references to Maha Kumbh, and the NDA government’s initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ are among the new additions. The new textbooks were ostensibly designed in line with the new National Education Policy (NEP) and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023, which emphasise incorporating Indian traditions, philosophies, knowledge systems, and local context into school education. While NCERT had previously trimmed sections on the Mughals and Delhi Sultanate and a two-page table on Mughal emperors’ achievements as part of its syllabus rationalisation during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022–23, the new textbook has now removed all references to them.

---