New NCERT textbooks don't carry ‘poverty and colonised' narratives, says PM's advisory council member

The Hindu

2 days ago

The new social science textbooks developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has broken away from the 'old poverty and colonised narratives', Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the PM's Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC) and chairperson of NCERT's Curricular Area Group Economics, said on Tuesday.
'The new NCERT textbooks for Class 7 are out… Note that the images are clear and in colour, the economics section teach ideas using modern examples, and history tries to focus on storytelling rather than dates. I am sure these too will be improved with iterations but we have broken away from old poverty and gratefully colonised narrative,' Mr. Sanyal stated on X.
Mr. Sanyal further said that the economics segment in the old textbooks (from 2012) were 'deliberately', designed for 'povertarian narratives'. 'Images from Partition-time refugee schools, all technology was steam engines, the chapter on markets was about how fair price shops and how shopkeepers were 'hoarding', and the chapter on finance was all about women's self-help groups,' he said further on X.
The Hindu had earlier reported that the new social science textbook for Class 7 – Exploring Society: India and Beyond has combined previously separate textbooks on history, geography and social and political Life (which also had a section on economics) into one.
The new NCERT textbooks for class VII are out. Below are images of the integrated social science textbook (history, economics, geography etc). Note that the images are clear and in colour, the economics section teach ideas using modern examples, and history tries to focus on… pic.twitter.com/hB7oMpscog — Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) June 10, 2025
Digital money in
The new Class 7 social science book deals with economics in Theme E in two chapters – From Barter to Money and Understanding Markets.
The new book's 'From Barter to Money' chapter goes into the basic details of barter system, the history of money, coinage system during Chalukyas, Cholas, and goes on to discuss use of digital money, including systems of net banking and United Payments Interface. The second chapter, Understanding Markets, also delves into the history of markets by featuring a section on Karnataka's historical Hampi Bazaar, and goes on to explain how modern markets work.
In comparison, the previous NCERT textbook for Class 7, focussed only on contemporary agrarian markets, dedicating a section to weavers' cooperatives and included exercises like writing a letter to the Minister asking what a student thinks should be the proper payment to workers after providing graphics on the current situation of labour charges in the garment industry. While the old textbook is replete with multiple examples, the new textbook too, delves on a similar exercise in the context of modern-day setting where a family would bargain with a vegetable seller to lower the price of vegetables, but would go to supermarkets and end up buying it at a slightly higher price.
Similarly, Mr. Sanyal also mentioned that while the economics sections of Classes 6 and 7 textbooks had been revised, his team is now looking at revising Class 8 books.
Missing farmers and debt
The economics section in old NCERT textbooks of Class 6 was distinctly divided into two chapters – 'Rural Livelihoods' and 'Urban Livelihoods'. The Rural Livelihoods chapter touched upon daily wage workers working in paddy fields of rural Tamil Nadu. An entire section was dedicated to farmers being in debt, on the hardships faced by people living in fishing villages, and so on. In comparison, one of the chapters in the new Class 6 textbook's economics section begins with a quote from Kautilya's Arthashastra, with a segment on the dairy cooperative revolution and the Amul's role in Gujarat. While the old Class 6 textbook had detailed case studies on farmers and debt, the new textbook does not include these details.
The new textbooks for Class 8 are now awaited. NCERT officials told The Hindu that while the new English textbooks were made available from May 17, rest of the subjects, including social science, will be out by June end, before the schools re-open in July after the summer break.