NCERT Shows Up The Mughals As Leftist Whitewash Falls Off History Textbooks
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
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