The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) of India has removed chapters and topics related to the Mughal empire from its 12th-grade history syllabus.
The changes start from the academic session 2023-24, an official in the education department said.
Due to the revision, the history book called “Themes of Indian History-Part II” will no longer have the chapters ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (16th and 17th centuries)’.
In the political science textbook for Class 12, parts of Gujarat Riots and the National Human Rights Commission report on it have been removed from the chapter on ‘Recent Developments in Indian Politics’, PTI reported.
Under the now removed topics from the history books of Class 12, students were informed about “Akbarnama” (the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar) and “Badshah Nama” (chronicle of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan), Mughal rulers and their empire, composition of manuscripts, colour illustrations, ideal states, capitals and courts, titles, gifts and presents, royal family, royal bureaucracy, Mughal elite, information and empire, borders.
Similarly, lessons regarding the ‘Central Islamic lands’, ‘Confrontation of cultures’ and ‘The Industrial Revolution’ too have been removed from the Class 11 textbook ‘Themes In World History’, the official added.
Removal of such chapters from Indian textbooks is nothing new.
In April last year, the Central Board of Secondary Education dropped chapters on the Islamic non-aligned movement, the Cold War era, the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of Mughal courts and the industrial revolution from the history and political science syllabi of classes 11 and 12.
BJP leader elated
A leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has welcomed the development, claiming that “thieves” were being referred to as the Mughal rulers.
Kapil Mishra said that the initiative will shine a light on the “truth.”
Retweeting a video on the revised textbooks, he wrote, “It is a great decision to remove false history of Mughals from the NCERT. Thieves, pickpockets and two-penny road raiders were called the Mughal Sultanate and the emperor of India. Akbar, Babar, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb are not in the history books, they are in the dustbin.”
In a follow-up tweet on Tuesday, Mishra added that the ‘false claims’ of the Mughal empire are being rectified. He said, “The lie of Mughals is being removed from history. Now in the next phase their truth will be told. Mughals’ loot, adultery, atrocities, cowardice, hatred of temples and idols, their relationship with their real daughters and sisters, their children rotting in drunkenness and harem, their hatred of art, literature and music should also be taught.”
