In a move that appears to inject religious bigotry into the minds of young students, the NCERT’s new Class 8 Social Science textbook portrays medieval Indian history through a deeply religious lens by repeatedly branding the Delhi Sultans and Mughals as brutal, intolerant, and iconoclastic rulers, while casting Shivaji as a devout Hindu who upheld religious tolerance and rebuilt desecrated temples.
By linking historical invasions and conflicts explicitly with the religious identities of the rulers and describing the period as a dark chapter in Indian history, the textbook draws attention to violence and destruction while repeatedly emphasising the Muslim identity of the perpetrators, The Indian Express reported.
The new book, titled Exploring Society: India and Beyond, marks a departure from earlier textbooks that introduced this period in Class 7 with a more neutral tone. Now shifted to Class 8, the content repeatedly highlights religious intolerance, citing numerous instances of temple destruction and forced conversions, while offering minimal contextual analysis beyond religious motivation.
Babur is described as a conqueror who erected towers of skulls and enslaved women and children, while Akbar is presented as a ruler whose early military campaigns involved mass civilian killings despite later attempts at religious inclusivity. Aurangzeb is characterised through both political and religious motives, but the emphasis remains on his temple demolitions and religious edicts.
The Delhi Sultanate is similarly portrayed in the book as a period marked by religious iconoclasm, with generals such as Malik Kafur launching raids on major Hindu temple towns. The jiziya tax, formerly described as a fiscal levy, is now interpreted as a tool for religious humiliation and coercion.
Across the chapters, there are frequent references to the destruction of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain places of worship, with the term ‘infidel’ inserted to convey the underlying religious disdain attributed to the invaders.
This narrative is framed by a “note on darker periods of history”, which attempts to soften the tone by asserting that no one living today bears responsibility for past atrocities, yet the caution appears contradictory as the surrounding content fixates on a singular religious identity.
While the book includes sections on the administrative systems, economic activities, and city-building efforts under the Sultanate and Mughal rule, these appear marginal when compared to the sustained focus on religious violence and desecration.
In stark contrast, the chapter on the Marathas lauds Shivaji as a devout Hindu who respected other faiths and rebuilt temples destroyed by earlier rulers. His leadership is praised in cultural and spiritual terms, positioning him as a nationalist and tolerant figure, thus reinforcing a binary narrative that separates Hindu resistance as civilisational defence from Muslim rule as religious aggression.
The NCERT has justified the changes by claiming the account is evidence-based and part of a new educational framework under the NEP 2020 and NCF-SE 2023. It asserts that any comparison with older textbooks is unwarranted due to the comprehensive overhaul in structure and pedagogy.
However, critics argue that the thematic tilt of the new book risks fostering a polarised historical consciousness among students, where medieval India is depicted primarily as a battleground between religions rather than as a complex socio-political landscape.