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News18
15 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.
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.
New Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
NCERT's revised class 8 social science textbook detailing 'brutality' of Mughal rulers draws mixed reactions
NEW DELHI: The NCERT's revised Class 8 social science textbook has replaced existing lessons on the Mughal Empire with those detailing the religious persecution and other brutalities committed by the Empire in India, sparking controversy. 'Exploring Society: India and Beyond,' released for use in the academic year 2025-2026, offers a multidisciplinary understanding of history, geography, economics and governance, said an official release from NCERT. With a disclaimer stating that no one should be blamed for the past, the book details the wrongdoings of Muslim rulers. Emperor Akbar has been held responsible for ordering the massacre of 30,000 people after Chittorgarh city was seized in 1568; Babur has been portrayed as "a ruthless conqueror"; King Aurangazeb has been accused of ordering the destruction of temples in Somnath and Mathura, while Alauddin Khilji's force allegedly launched attacks on Srirangam and Chidambaram temples. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj has been credited with rebuilding the destroyed temples and safeguarding Hindu traditions. The book also details the economic exploitation of Indians under both Mughal rule and British rule.
Time of India
3 days ago
- General
- Time of India
NCERT calls Babur brutal: What history's shifting lens reveals about the Mughal emperor
NCERT describes Babur as 'brutal' If history had a Twitter bio, Babur's might read: Brutal conqueror. Poet. Exile. Book hoarder. Empire starter. Occasional librarian. In a move that has sparked more than just academic curiosity, the NCERT's new Class 8 Social Science textbook Exploring Society: India and Beyond introduces young minds to Babur not as a romanticised founder of an empire, but as a 'brutal and ruthless conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities.' His successors don't escape the editorial scalpel either: Akbar is presented as 'a blend of brutality and tolerance,' while Aurangzeb is noted for destroying temples and gurdwaras. For all the clamour around revisionism, the real story lies in how Babur has been portrayed over time—sometimes with awe, sometimes with apology, and often with discomfort. From the candour of Baburnama to the cold calculations of colonial chroniclers, and from nationalist historians to modern reinterpreters, Babur's historical image has been as mercurial as a Timurid prince wandering between exile and empire. Let's take a closer look at how history has handled Babur—warts, wisdom and war crimes included—and what this evolving portrayal means for the students now reading him in their first brush with Indian history. Baburnama: The brutally honest autobiography To understand Babur, one must begin with Baburnama (or Tuzuk-i-Baburi ), the emperor's own diary, written in Chaghatai Turkish and later translated into English by Annette Susannah Beveridge in 1922. It's often celebrated as one of the most brutally honest autobiographies in global literature—part military log, part poetry anthology, part confessional. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Sore Knees? These Foods Could Be Your Natural Solution Undo In his account of the 1519 Bajaur massacre, Babur wrote: 'As the Bajauris were rebels and at enmity with the people of Islam… they were put to general massacre… At a guess more than 3,000 men went to their death.' He didn't just stop there. The bodies were used to construct macabre monuments: 'On the walls, in houses, streets and alleys, the dead lay… We ordered that a tower of heads should be set up on the rising-ground.' But Baburnama also reveals an aesthete who loved gardens, books, and libraries, often raiding enemy libraries after conquests. The paradox is potent: a man who beheaded enemies by day and rearranged bookshelves by night. Colonial historians: Brutality as backdrop for British civility British historians like Lane-Poole and Smith emphasized Babur's role as a foundational figure while highlighting his brutal ancestry, often to justify British rule. The Imperial Filter: Stanley Lane-Poole's Dual Lens In Rulers of India: Babar and History of India, From the Reign of Akbar the Great to the Fall of the Moghul Empire , Stanley Lane-Poole (1854–1931) offered Babur a reluctant salute. He called him 'a soldier of fortune and not an architect of empire,' subtly denying him the title of empire-builder while grudgingly admitting he 'laid the first stone of the splendid fabric that his grandson Akbar achieved.' Lane-Poole, ever the Orientalist diplomat, cast Babur not as a destroyer but as a bridge—a connector of worlds. 'Babar serves as a crucial link between Central Asia and India, predatory hordes and imperial government, and Tamerlane and Akbar,' he wrote. Babur, in this version, is less a brute and more a hinge in history, though one still slightly untrustworthy. Vincent Arthur Smith: Lineage, Liquor, and the Lurid Legacy If Lane-Poole offered reluctant praise, Vincent Arthur Smith (1848–1920) came wielding a colonial cold shower. In Akbar the Great Mogul, 1542–1605 , he scoured Babur's bloodline and found only vice. 'Akbar's ancestors like Babar and Humayun were barbarous and vicious... Intemperance was the besetting sin of the Timuroid royal family... Babur (was) an elegant toper... Humayun, the son of Babar, was even more degenerate and cruel than his father.' If you can smell both the Victorian disapproval of alcohol and a fascination with dynastic decay, you're not wrong. Smith painted Babur less as a visionary ruler and more as a functional alcoholic in an inherited spiral of savagery—a sort of imperial soap opera with swords. For Smith, Babur's worth was best understood through the blood-soaked mirror of Timur and Genghis Khan. The sword may have been sharp, but so was the ancestral hangover. William Erskine: The historian as humaniser Enter William Erskine (1773–1852), a man who read Babur more closely than perhaps Babur read his own fate. In A History of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Báber and Humáyun (1854), Erskine built a more nuanced portrait. Having translated Babur's Tuzuk-i-Baburi into English as early as 1826, Erskine's Babur is less beast and more bard. He focused on Babur the Timurid prince—strategist, memoirist, nature lover. Here was a man who recorded the scent of melons and the feel of battlefields with equal literary grace. Erskine's approach was methodical, empathetic, and archival. He dug deep into Persian manuscripts and resisted the impulse to reduce Babur to a stereotype. In an era when brutality sold books, Erskine chose balance—a historian before his time. Elliot and Dowson: The imperial comparison set No imperial historical survey is complete without a bit of moral contrast. Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson provided exactly that in their colossal eight-volume The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period (1867–1877). Their project was ambitious but not innocent. The explicit aim? To demonstrate 'the immense advantages accruing to [Indians] under the mildness and equity of [British] rule' as opposed to the so-called tyranny of earlier Muslim rulers. The duo collated Persian chronicles and battle records, often allowing the documentation of Babur's violence to speak for itself. Early Indian historians: A calculated distance Indian historians like Sarkar and Majumdar focused more on military strategy and administrative capability. Jadunath Sarkar: The military strategist Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958), knighted for his historical contributions and often lauded as 'the greatest Indian historian of his time,' was less interested in moral judgments and more in the mechanics of conquest. In works like History of Aurangzib and Military History of India , Sarkar treated Babur's campaigns with the cool detachment of a war strategist reviewing a chessboard. To Sarkar, Babur wasn't simply a conqueror—he was a tactician who outmanoeuvred larger Indian armies with superior artillery, mobility, and battlefield positioning. It wasn't just blood that secured the throne—it was brains, and lots of logistical foresight. R.C. Majumdar: The balanced chronicler If Sarkar was the tactician, R.C. Majumdar was the careful referee of historical contradictions. Majumdar's accounts resist simplistic binaries. His Babur was not just a warrior but also a man occasionally capable of restraint—though only when it didn't get in the way of empire-building. Majumdar doesn't erase Babur's violent streak—far from it. He acknowledges the blood spilled, the heads piled, and the strategy often wrapped in slaughter. But he also refuses to flatten Babur into a caricature of cruelty. Violence, Majumdar suggests, was not impulse—it was often calculus. Contemporary historians: Modern reassessments Modern historians show remarkable diversity—from Dalrymple's cultural humanist approach to Maldahiyar's harsh revisionist critique. William Dalrymple : The Cultural Humanist In his 2020 introduction to The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur , William Dalrymple doesn't so much chronicle Babur as he curates his contradictions. Dalrymple's Babur is the thinking man's warrior—the literary sovereign who composed verses even as he conquered cities. Describing The Baburnama as 'one of the greatest memoirs in any language and of any age,' Dalrymple reframes the text not merely as royal autobiography but as an archive of shared humanity—'a testament to humanity in which the personal becomes universal. ' This Babur was a connoisseur of beauty, addicted to books, and, amusingly enough, something of a bibliophilic bandit. 'His first act after a conquest,' writes Dalrymple, 'was to go to the library of his opponent and raid its shelves.' Imagine Alexander with a Kindle. Dalrymple's tone is reverent, but it also invites modern readers to ask: Can a man write immortal prose and still stain his legacy with imperial ambition? According to Dalrymple, yes—and that's precisely the point. Stephen Frederic Dale: The psychological biographer In Babur: Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor, 1483–1530 (2018), Stephen Frederic Dale doesn't just look at Babur—he peers into him. This is less history than biography with a pulse. Dale's Babur is not an icon but a haunted émigré—a man carting the trauma of displacement across continents. He paints a poignant psychological portrait: Babur 'suffered the regretful anguish of an exile who felt himself to be a stranger in a strange land.' This is no conqueror reveling in plunder, but an uprooted soul trying to transplant a Central Asian dream into Indian soil. Abraham Eraly: The political realist Then comes Abraham Eraly with his sharp political scalpel, slicing through the romantic haze. In The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age , Eraly does not flinch. Babur, he argues, was not merely a tactician or a poet-in-armour—he was a man possessed by what Eraly calls 'ruthless machinations and brutal lust for power.' This is an empire as a crime scene. Eraly's Babur is neither nostalgic nor noble; he's hungry, strategic, and stunningly effective at dismembering opposition. Aabhas Maldahiyar: The revisionist critic If Eraly is blunt, Aabhas Maldahiyar is positively unfiltered. In Babur: The Chessboard King (2024), Maldahiyar doesn't bother with psychological nuance or poetic redemption. He opens with fire—and never lets up. To Maldahiyar, Babur is not just flawed; he is catastrophically unfit. 'A savage, weakened ruler,' he calls him. 'A dreadful administrator, an unwise economist, and a disastrous military commander.' There is no room for ambiguity here—Babur is not just history's anti-hero, but a cautionary tale. Between the textbook and the truth So where does that leave us—and our Class 8 students? NCERT's move to describe Babur as 'brutal and ruthless' isn't unfounded. But neither is the portrayal complete. Historical figures, especially those who built empires on bones and verses, deserve neither hagiography nor cancellation. They require context—nuance, if you will. Babur was a conqueror who wrote like a monk, a killer who composed couplets. Whether students are ready for that complexity is not just a curricular question, but a philosophical one. Perhaps the best way to teach Babur is to let students read his Baburnama , and decide for themselves whether he was a poet in armour—or a warlord with a bookshelf. Because in the end, the question isn't whether Babur was brutal. It's whether we're brave enough to teach the truth in full. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
India Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
NCERT says Class 8 textbook facts on Mughal brutality from 'well-known sources'
After its new Class 8 history textbook sparked discussion over how the Mughal era is portrayed, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has issued a clarification. It said that the facts in the book are drawn from 'well-known primary and secondary academic sources' and that the aim is to help students critically understand India's past, not judge book, Exploring Society, India and Beyond, doesn't shy away from showing the harsh side of history. It describes Babur as a ruthless conqueror, Akbar's reign as mixed, and Aurangzeb as destructive. The Delhi Sultanate's religious intolerance and violence also find space.A special note on page 20 tells students not to use these historical events to assign blame to people in the present. NCERT says this note is key to understanding the book's message. 'The note sums up the essence of the content presented,' it JUST A LIST OF DATESNCERT said it deliberately avoided overloading students. Instead, it focuses on building a broader view of Indian history between the 13th and mid-19th centuries -- a crucial period that shaped modern Class 8 is the last year of middle school, the goal is to help students connect history with social and cultural change. NCERT said the book was designed to develop a critical, multidisciplinary understanding of India's the full text of NCERT's statement:Grade 8 textbook 'Exploring Society, India and Beyond', developed in pursuance with the NEP-2020 and guided by NCF-SE-2023, has been released by NCERT. This textbook attempts to provide an idea about the geography, history (medieval & modern), economic life and governance of the country, from a multi-disciplinary perspective in an integrated way. Class-8 being the last year of the middle stage, the students are expected to acquire broad multidisciplinary perspective in understanding of our past between 13th to Mid-19th century and how the various events of that period have helped to shape and influenced the evolution of India of aim has been to consistently avoid attempting to load the child with too much information and to develop a critical understanding of the subject. Hence, the various facts, have been presented in a comprehensible manner to promote holistic learning in this textbook. All the facts presented in this textbook are based on well-known primary and secondary academic in order to avoid generation of any prejudice and misunderstanding, 'A note on history's darker period' at page 20 has been added for the benefit of the learners. This summarizes the essence of the content presented in the textbook; the entire textbook should be seen and appreciated from this perspective.- Ends
