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News18
21 hours ago
- Politics
- News18
NCERT Shows Up The Mughals As Leftist Whitewash Falls Off History Textbooks
Last Updated: Decolonisation of the mind and learning the whole truth about one's past are as essential in nation-building as sunlight and water are to gardening The paint of forced 'secularism' that Leftist historians put on India's school textbooks is peeling off at last. The whitewash factories of Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Bipan Chandra, and others—which sanitised India's history of the brutality of Islamic invaders and downplayed the glory of local heroes and rulers, denying generations of unsuspecting students access to truth from the past—are finally shutting down. The newly released Class 8 history textbooks by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for this 2025-26 academic year portray Mughal rulers as 'intellectuals" who also 'plundered" India. Babur, Akbar, and Aurangzeb have been described as 'brutal mass murderers" and 'destroyers of temples". The book Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1) released in July has chapters covering Indian history from the 13th to the 17th centuries titled 'Reshaping India's Political Map in Theme B – Tapestry of the Past'. It covers the rise and fall of the Delhi Sultanate and resistance to it, the Vijayanagara Empire, the Mughals and how Indian rulers fought them, and the rise of Sikhism. The book describes Delhi Sultanate as a period marked by frequent destruction of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist temples, driven by both plunder and religious zeal. Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, has been bluntly described as the man he was: a 'brutal and ruthless conqueror" who 'slaughtered entire populations", enslaved women, and 'erected towers of skulls". It is not the writer's opinion. Passages have been carefully sourced from his own autobiography, the Baburnama. The schoolbook does not paint him entirely in the black. It also shows him as cultured, intellectually curious, and having a keen appreciation of architecture, poetry, flora, and fauna. His grandson was not entirely Akbar The Great (an epithet widely used by the Leftist cabal) either, the book argues. His rule is described as a 'blend of brutality and tolerance", referencing the massacre of 30,000 civilians in Chittorgarh. Akbar's proclamation of victory is quoted in the textbook: 'We have succeeded in occupying a number of forts and towns belonging to infidels and have established Islam there. With the help of our bloodthirsty sword, we have erased signs of infidelity from their minds and have destroyed temples in those places and also all over Hindustan." Stating that Akbar kept 'non-Muslims in a minority in the higher echelons of the administration", the textbook acknowledges that he leaned towards peace and harmony in the later years of his reign. Aurangzeb's farmans to raze schools and temples does not escape the NCERT textbook either. 'Temples at Banaras, Mathura, Somnath among many others were destroyed, as well as Jain temples and Sikh gurdwaras," it says. It also mentions the persecution of Sufis and Zoroastrians at the hands of the Mughals. Asked about the fundamental change in approach, Michel Danino, head of NCERT's Curricular Area Group for Social Science, told the media: 'Indian history cannot be cannot sanitised and presented as a smooth, happy development throughout. There were bright periods but also dark periods where people suffered, so we have given note on the darker chapters of history, and also given a disclaimer that no one today should be regarded as responsible for whatever happened in the past." The new Class 8 textbook, unlike most of its predecessors, does not feign to be oblivious about local heroics either. It has a section on the fight against the Mughals, including on the Jat peasants who killed a Mughal officer. It talks about Bhil, Gond, Santhal, and Koch tribes who fought to protect their land; and of Rani Durgavati who ruled in one of the Gond kingdoms and took on Akbar's army. A section deals with the escape of Mewar's ruler Maharana Pratap, and the triumph of the Ahoms led by Lachit Borphukan against Aurangzeb's army on the mighty Brahmaputra flowing in Assam. A criticism that the Narendra Modi government has often faced is that it has not done enough and quickly on India's toxic and largely colonised education system. It has taken over a decade to roll out the new National Education Policy and the National Curriculum Framework. But better late than never, it seems. Decolonisation of the mind and learning the whole truth about one's past are as essential in nation-building as sunlight and water are to gardening. The ground is finally being prepared to produce a more awakened citizenry. First Published: July 19, 2025, 11:23 IST News opinion Opinion | NCERT Shows Up The Mughals As Leftist Whitewash Falls Off History Textbooks Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
New Indian Express
a day ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
NCERT twists history, charges DMK allies
CHENNAI: Alliance partners of the ruling DMK have come down heavily on the centre and the NCERT for the newly introduced Class 8 social science textbook alleging that it promotes communal narratives and misrepresents historical facts. CPI state secretary R Mutharasan said the textbook recounts events during the reign of Mughal emperors Akbar, Babur and Aurangzeb in a manner that aligns with the current Hindutva ideology and incites religious hatred. 'This is a dangerous move that sows the seeds of communal intolerance in the tender minds of schoolchildren,' he said. MDMK general secretary Vaiko said the textbook selectively portrays Mughal rulers as tyrants while promoting a one-sided historical narrative. MMK president M H Jawahirullah called the textbook 'political propaganda disguised as education.'
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Extra! Extra! Read all about last newspaper hawker in Paris
Advertisement Such is Akbar's renown that President Emmanuel Macron recently awarded him a Légion d'Honneur, the Republic's highest order of merit. It will be conferred at a ceremony at the Élysée Palace in the fall. 'Perhaps it will help me get my French passport!' said Akbar, who sometimes has a withering take on life, having seen much of its underside. He has a residence permit, but his application for French nationality is mired in Gallic bureaucracy. Akbar moves at startling speed. A sinewy bundle of energy at 72, he clocks several miles a day, selling Le Monde, Les Echos, and other daily newspapers from around noon until midnight. Dismissive of the digital, he has become a human networker of a district once dear to Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, now overrun by brand-hungry tourists. Advertisement 'How are you, dear Ali?' says Véronique Voss, a psychotherapist, as he enters the Café Fleurus near the Jardin du Luxembourg. 'I worried about you yesterday because it was so hot.' Heat does not deter Akbar, who has known worse. He thanks Voss with a big smile and takes off his dark blue Le Monde cap. 'When you have nothing, you take whatever you can get,' he says. 'I had nothing.' At his next stop, an Italian cafe, Jean-Philippe Bouyer, a stylist who has worked for Dior, greets Akbar warmly. 'Ali is indispensable,' Bouyer says. 'Something very positive and rare in our times emanates from him. He kept the soul of a child.' Born in 1953 into a family of 10 children, two of whom died young, Akbar grew up in Rawalpindi amid rampant poverty and open sewers, eating leftovers, sleeping five to a room, leaving school when he was 12, working odd jobs, and eventually teaching himself to read. 'I did not want to wear clothes that reeked of misery,' he said. 'I always dreamed of giving my mother a house with a garden.' To advance, he had to leave. He procured a passport at 18. All he knew of Europe was the Eiffel Tower and Dutch tulips. A winding road took him by bus to Kabul, Afghanistan, where Western hippies, most of them high, abounded in 1970 — but that was not Akbar's thing. He went on by road to Iran, where he said, 'the shah was an omnipresent God.' Eventually, he reached Athens, Greece, and wandered the streets looking for work. A businessperson took pity and, noting his eagerness, offered him a job on a ship. Akbar cleaned the kitchen floor. He washed dishes. He was faced with aggressive mockery from bawdy shipmates for his refusal, as a Muslim, to drink. Advertisement In Shanghai, Akbar abandoned ship rather than face further taunting. The world is round, and around he went, back to Rawalpindi, and then on the westward road again to Europe. His mother deserved better; that conviction drove him through every humiliation. Visa issues in Greece and eventual expulsion landed him back in Pakistan a second time. His family thought he was mad, but, undaunted, he tried again. This time, he washed up in Rouen, France. It had taken only two years. After working there in a restaurant, he moved on to Paris in 1973. 'By the time I got to Paris I had an overwhelming desire to anchor myself,' Akbar said. 'Since I began circling the planet, I hadn't met many people who didn't disappoint me. But if you have no hope, you're dead.' He slept under bridges and in cellars. He encountered racism. He lost his virginity, and in so doing, he says, encountered the phrase 'Ça y est!' that became his moniker. He spent a couple of months in Burgundy harvesting cucumbers. There, he ceded to wine and pork, forbidden by Islam. 'That was a turning point in my life,' Akbar wrote in a memoir published over a decade ago. 'I still believed in God but I had concluded that eaters of sausages were often better people than Muslims with the strictest practices.' At last, in 1974, Akbar found his calling when he ran into an Argentine student hawking newspapers. He inquired how he could do likewise and was soon in the streets of Paris with copies of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and Hara-Kiri, now defunct. He liked to walk, enjoyed contact with people and, even if margins were small, could eke out a living. Advertisement Fast-forward 51 years, and Akbar is still at it. Because St.-Germain is the home of intellectuals, actors, and politicians, he has rubbed shoulders with the influential. From François Mitterrand to Bill Clinton (who told him Pakistan was 'dangerous'), and from actress and singer Jane Birkin to author Bernard-Henri Lévy, he has met them all. None of this has gone to his head. He remains a modest guy with a winning manner. His main newspaper is now Le Monde, which he acquires at a kiosk for about $2 a copy and sells for almost double that. He makes around $70 on an average day; he rarely takes a day off. Newspaper reading remains ingrained in France. Friends may buy two or three copies and slip him 10 euros or invite him to lunch. He has no pension, but he gets by — and his mother got a Rawalpindi garden. From an arranged marriage with a Pakistani woman in 1980, Akbar has five sons, one of them autistic, one with various physical ailments. A sixth child died at birth. Life has not been easy, one reason 'I have made it my business to make people laugh.' Some 50 years later, Akbar remains on the move. Lose sight of him for a second, and he's gone. But then comes the cry: 'Ça y est! Marine is marrying Jordan!' — a reference to far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her young protégé Jordan Bardella. His jokes are a sales pitch; they also reflect a yearning for a happier, simpler world. Advertisement
Express Tribune
a day ago
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Altering Mughal history in Indian textbooks
The writer is a public policy analyst based in Lahore. She can be reached at durdananajam1@ Listen to article In the 2025-26 academic year, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in India introduced a revamped Class 8 Social Science textbook that has stirred significant controversy. The new content devotes extensive space to portraying Mughal emperors — particularly Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb — as intellectually refined yet deeply brutal rulers who plundered, enslaved and forcibly imposed their rule on Indian populations. Akbar, once widely celebrated as a symbol of secularism, is now shown as a temple-razer who slaughtered civilians, with only a brief reference to his later turn toward peace. Similarly, Babur is acknowledged for his appreciation of poetry and architecture but also condemned for his ruthlessness in conquest. Aurangzeb is portrayed primarily through the lens of temple destruction and religious persecution. The NCERT justifies this revision as an attempt to "unsanitise" Indian history, presenting rulers in their full complexity. However, critics argue this is less about academic honesty and more about a deeper political agenda — one that seeks to delegitimise the Muslim contribution to Indian civilisation by highlighting brutality over cultural or administrative legacy. This is not the first time the BJP-led government has surgically altered school curricula. Since coming to power in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), guided ideologically by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has consistently revised textbooks to reflect its vision of India as a Hindu Rashtra — one that prioritises Hindu identity over its constitutionally secular ethos. Under this agenda, Muslim rulers, who were once part of a nuanced narrative of India's pluralistic past, are being reduced to foreign invaders and religious bigots. Entire chapters on the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal courts have been removed from older textbooks. Muslim leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India's first education minister and a key figure in the freedom struggle, have been omitted from political science curricula. The irony, however, is inescapable. Monarchs throughout history - whether Hindu, Muslim, or Christian — have employed violence as a tool of statecraft. Mughal emperors, like others, engaged in war, suppressed dissent and sometimes destroyed religious institutions. British monarchs in the 16th to 19th centuries killed, converted, and colonised on a massive scale in both Europe and their colonies. Henry VIII had his wives and political rivals executed. Queen Elizabeth I suppressed Catholics and waged wars in Ireland. Even within their own families, European monarchs eliminated siblings, cousins and advisers for power. Violence and conquest were the very grammar of monarchy. To underline Mughals as barbaric, while ignoring the universal behaviour of monarchs, is historically dishonest and academically irresponsible. The Mughals, in their centuries of rule, also chronicled some of India's most enduring institutions — in administration, art, architecture and interfaith dialogue. Akbar's Din-i-Ilahi and his policy of Sulh-i-Kul (peace with all) were pioneering experiments in religious coexistence. Such academic distortion manufactures critical political consequences. By poisoning young minds with partial history, the Indian state is emboldening a generation to view India's 200 million Muslims with suspicion and hostility. This is not merely revisionist history; it is the sowing of fascism. This curricular vilification of Mughals aligns with a broader global narrative of portraying Muslims as inherently violent, which is used to justify their marginalisation, persecution, and even annihilation. This is a global pattern seen recently with the genocide in Gaza and, before that, the destabilisation of Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Syria through foreign interventions that contrived prolonged civil wars. These interventions disproportionately fractured the political structures and social cohesion of Muslim-majority societies. History must be told in full — its glories and horrors alike. Cherry-picking atrocities to vilify a community while erasing contributions is plainly propaganda. Its consequences will erupt in society, in politics and in blood.
Hans India
2 days ago
- Politics
- Hans India
MyVoice: Views of our readers 18th July 2025
Majoritarian mindset The NCERT's revision of the contents of the textbooks is in line with the BJP's and the Modi government's pursuit of a Hindutva agenda. The Hindu Right's world view and its fixation on other faiths run through the newly-added texts, as is easily seen from their phrasing. The Hindutva brigade's 'fascination' with the Mughal rulers has more to do with the use of history for political manipulation and mobilisation than its interest in understanding Indian history. It is 'fond' of this particular period of history as it provides the grist for its political discourse. The emphasis is laid on the Mughal period to buttress the argument that Hindus and Muslims have been constantly in conflict - nothing could be further from the truth – and make a case for Hindu revivalism. The reference to the British colonial rule as one which 'drained India of its wealth' seems to be a feeble attempt to claim objectivity. As for the mention of 'Christianisation', schools and hospitals built by the Christian missionaries to benefit the masses, mainly the long-oppressed lower castes, too could have been mentioned. The lament in the revised texts that the British destroyed India's traditional ways of life and its indigenous educational system and 'imposed foreign cultural values' is of immense sociological significance. History is not to be looked at through tinted glasses. Unfortunately, the NCERT gives students exposure only to a sanitized version of history. G David Milton, Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu Long overdue move The revised NCERT Class VIII textbook is a long-overdue correction of colonial narratives. By acknowledging the massive economic drain from India and exposing how 'modernisation' came at the cost of indigenous systems, it encourages critical thinking. Including local education models and the rise of the Marathas adds depth to the period often overshadowed by Mughal-British binaries. Importantly, the balanced approach showing both exploitation and exchange helps students grasp history with nuance. This bold, evidence-based shift deserves appreciation for reclaiming forgotten perspectives and fostering a more self-aware generation. Dr H K Vijayakumar, Raichur Is still Akbar 'The Great'? The new Social Science text book to be newly introduced by the NCERT for students in the 2025-26 academic year, portrays Mughal rulers ,especially Akbar among others, as intellectually endowed and also those who plundered the Indian population. So, how can his name tagging with the rarest title ' The Great' still holds apt and relevant? Seshagiri Row Karry, Hyderabad Unbiased journalism My heartfelt congratulations to The Hans India newspaper on completing 14 years of publication and entering into its 15th year. I am very happy to write that The Hans India is the only newspaper which has an Education page published every day. I eagerly look forward to your Sunday Edition for the Reader's Pulse. Yours is the only newspaper which has a page entirely for the readers and we feel free to share our thoughts with you .I am also glad that many of my thoughts and opinions have been published in The Hans India .Your reporting is unbiased and highly professional. Wishing Team Hans India a very bright future . Parimala G Tadas, Hyderabad Save Nimisha Priya The fate of Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya sentenced to death under Yemeni law for murdering her business partner and Yemeni national Abdoi Mehdi looks bleak with Mehdi's family rejecting the offer of blood money made by her family. The international community must, through good offices, mediate Nimisha's release, as the woman was forced into the diabolic crime to escape harassment by, and get back her passport from Mehdi. Yemen, an Islamic nation must do justice to the spirit of forgiveness espoused in the Holy Quran. Dr George Jacob, Kochi Too much Hindutva on display What is going on in Uttar Pradesh? Kanwar yatra is a major Hindu pilgrimage held usually in July, August. Giving more importance to the pilgrimage many educational institutions have been closed, roads have been opened to pilgrims only, and meat shops and eateries maintained by minorities have been asked to close against Supreme Court order. About 17,000 trees have been cut in Ghaziabad and Meerut to make way for new routes. U P government's too much support to Hindu religion is against secularism. Supreme Court must interfere to maintain democracy and secularism. P Victor Selvaraj, Tirunelveli
