Erasing Empires: Is India Rewriting Its Past ?
30 July 2025
India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which guides curriculum in thousands of schools across the country, has revamped school textbooks to align with the ideology of the BJP-led central government. Critics say this will change the way future generations idea of India and the contributions of Muslims to the nation-building.
In India, when Riya, a 13-year-old student opened her new Social Science textbook this school year, she noticed something strange. Gone were the chapters on the Mughals and the Delhi Sultanate - eras that shaped the subcontinent’s politics, architecture, and culture for centuries. In their place: sections on ancient civilisations, pilgrimage sites, and spiritual traditions.
India is rewriting its school history books and, in the process, reshaping how its next generation will remember the past.
This year, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which guides curriculum in thousands of schools across the country, dropped chapters on Muslim rulers and medieval India from the Class 7 and 8 history syllabi. These changes follow earlier deletions in 2023, which removed the Mughals from Class 12 textbooks, and erased lessons on Dalit writer Omprakash Valmiki and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from lower grades.
Many academics and educators believe something more deliberate is happening — a narrowing of history that aligns with political ideology. image sourced/amc
Broader cuts across subjects
The curriculum revisions go beyond medieval history. Entire chapters on modern political movements, global revolutions, and social justice have also been deleted. From the Class 11 history syllabus, topics such as "Central Islamic Lands"," Confrontation of Cultures", and "The Industrial Revolution" are no longer included. Similarly, the Class 12 history book, Themes in Indian History – Part II, has dropped the chapter "Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts (16th and 17th Centuries)".
Chapters on post-independence politics have also been removed. In Class 12 political science textbooks, topics such as the "Rise of Popular Movements" and the "Era of One-Party Dominance" have been omitted. The Class 10 civics book "Democratic Politics – II" has seen the removal of chapters such as "Democracy and Diversity", "Popular Struggles and Movements", and "Challenges to Democracy".
According to reports by Jagran Josh and IANS, NCERT has also deleted references to sensitive historical and political episodes, including the aftermath of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, as well as paragraphs detailing Gandhi’s efforts towards Hindu-Muslim unity, which had provoked anger from Hindu extremists. Mentions of the 2002 Gujarat riots have also been dropped.
The NCERT states that this is about easing academic pressure following the pandemic. “They recommended that if this chapter is dropped, it won’t affect the knowledge of the children, and an unnecessary burden can be removed,” NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani told Indian media.
Saklani also said the changes should not be blown out of proportion, and all had been made by an expert panel.
The BJP’s national spokesperson, Gopal Krishna Agarwal, also told media the changes were “not rewriting history” but rather a way to rebalance the biased approach of some historians.
But many academics and educators believe something more deliberate is happening — a narrowing of history that aligns with political ideology.
“This tradition of rewriting history began from the beginning of the Republic of India in 1947,” says Professor Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, emeritus professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington. “It started with the Congress leaning on its political ideology to write school history and the CPI (M) in Bengal prioritised their left-leaning political ideology to do the same. Now, the current BJP government undid it all to write their version of history.”
A Sanitised Past, A Selective Present
The BJP-led central government has, since coming to power in 2014, focused heavily on shaping a cultural identity rooted in Hindu pride. In this framework, the medieval period - dominated by Muslim dynasties like the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals - becomes an uncomfortable chapter.
The new textbooks reflect that discomfort. Babur is now introduced as a “brutal and ruthless conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities.” Akbar’s reign is described as “a blend of brutality and tolerance,” while Aurangzeb is remembered for destroying temples and gurdwaras. A note in the Class 8 book adds: “No one should be held responsible today for events of the past.”
There is little mention of how the Mughal Empire shaped India’s architecture, literature, and economy, let alone its contributions to secular administration and cultural fusion.
“This is ingrained in the ideological positioning of the ruling BJP party,” says Professor Bandyopadhyay. “It relies heavily on an imagined golden past instead of the documented actual history.”
From WhatsApp to the Classroom
For years, this narrative has been taking shape online - in forwarded messages, social media reels, and nationalist cinema. Films like Padmaavat, depicting a barbaric Alauddin Khilji, and Kesari, framing a religious war between Afghan Muslims and Sikh soldiers, have helped shift public memory.
Now, many fear, this distortion has entered formal education.
“The discrediting of official historical facts began when the right-wing machinery in the country began questioning the authenticity of well-known and remarkable historians like Romila Thapar,” says a Bengaluru-based history lecturer, requesting anonymity. “It is unfortunate that the hate-filled WhatsApp messages are now part of the official curriculum in the country.”
What about the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb? Can chapters be deleted when the physical symbols of that history are carved in stone? image sourced/amc
On social media, many support the textbook changes, claiming there is “no place for invaders” in Indian history. Others, however, question the logic and the danger of erasing an entire epoch.
What about the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb? Can chapters be deleted when the physical symbols of that history are carved in stone?
Professor Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, emeritus professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington.
“The Mughals are an integral part of India’s past, and it cannot be erased,” says Professor Bandyopadhyay. “The future generation will begin thinking that the Muslims made no contribution to the Indian civilization, which is untrue. The Mughal Empire was a powerful one. It was the wealthiest Eastern Empire in the 16th Century.”
He continues: “It was not a dark age but one that had India standing high. They had rich contributions in the field of architecture, music and literature. The Mughals also encouraged Sanskrit literature, Indo-Persian style of architecture and Hindustani Music.”
Even Aurangzeb, often demonised in right-wing narratives, had complexity.
“Aurangzeb is portrayed to be a villain of those times. And he did on some level perpetuate some cruelty. But he also patronized Hindu Kingdoms, and encouraged several Hindu members in his courts,” Professor Bandyopadhyay points out.
He says history has no absolute golden ages nor complete dark ages. “History must be assessed - do not ignore negatives, but also don’t erase an entire empire’s contribution,” Professor Bandyopadhyay said.
Professor Bandyopadhyay has also authored a well-known book on Indian history titled From Plassey to Partition: A history of Modern India, which is used as a textbook on modern Indian history worldwide. The book is also required reading for young Indians aspiring to clear the examination to enter the Indian Civil Services.
“The academics can contribute to the writing of the history but cannot control it. They can ensure balance is brought in with public debates and discussions,” he explains.
Reading the Past Through Modern Eyes
Critics argue that the current government is promoting a simplistic, moralistic view of history that divides rulers along religious lines—Hindu versus Muslim, native versus foreign.
But history does not work that way.
“The era at the time was such that kings fought for their kingdoms, and less so on the lines of religion,” the history lecturer says. “You cannot judge that time based on today's morals.”
She points to Akbar’s Din-I-Ilahi - a spiritual philosophy blending ideas from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Political marriages across religions were common, not for faith, but for diplomacy and survival.
"I am proud of the rich Hindu culture and history. It was always taught in our schools and I believe it is an integral part of our history. But that does not mean we remove the contributions of others," she says, adding that during her school time she was taught the Ramayana, Mahabharata and even the Buddha Charita. "I was a student at a school that used the NCERT textbooks. I learned everything about our glorious Hindu kingdoms, the heritage in the South and so much more! I don't know why people feel that we were only taught about the Mughals," she quips.
“What is happening in India is very interesting today. In the name of writing a post-colonial view of history, the present regime is reinforcing the coloniser’s stereotypes,” Professor Bandyopadhyay said. “The British wanted to show that they were liberating the Indians from the brutal rule of the Mughals. That narrative stuck. And now it’s being reused.”
“Every nation tries to sanitize their history as part of their ruling party’s ideologies,” Bandyopadhyay warns. “Ultimately it is balanced by the struggle, debates and public discussions on the matters by the academics and experts. If the debates die down, the hegemony of ideologies will spread and erase what should not be forgotten.”
Asia Media Centre
Farheen Hussain
Media Adviser
Farheen Hussain is a Wellington-based communications professional and former journalist. She is currently working as a Media Advisor for the Asia Media Centre at the Asia New Zealand Foundation in Wellington. She is also in her final trimester of Masters in Global Business at Victoria University of Wellington. Farheen holds an MA in Political Science and International Relations, and a BA in History, Economics and Political Science from the Bangalore University in India.
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