THE New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is being implemented gradually. Apart from other things, the NEP focuses on Indian knowledge systems and Indian traditions. The changes to history have deleted the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal rule from the textbooks. A good seven centuries of history have been put into the dustbins, even as it is a pretty long period by any standards.
While the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had previously trimmed sections on the Mughals and Delhi Sultanate – including detailed account of dynasties like Tughlaqs, Khiljis, Mamluks, and Lodis and a two-page table on Mughal emperors’ achievements as part of its syllabus rationalisation during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022-23, the new textbook has now removed all references to them.
All references to the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal rulers have been deleted from the 7th standard textbook. In addition to the other books, wherever the references to Muslim rule are, that stands deleted. What also stands deleted is the reference to post-Mumbai (1992-93 violence), post-Gujarat violence (2002), the references to Nathuram Godse being a trained pracharak (propagandist) of the RSS, the ban on RSS in the aftermath of Mahatma Gandhi’s murder, among others. While Kumbh Mela finds a place, the stampede causing the death of scores of people and the Delhi station stampede have no place in the new scheme.
All this began with the COVID period when the pandemic offered a pretext to reduce the burden on students. It was followed by ‘rationalisation’, which meant deletion of these portions, causing discomfort to the Hindu nationalist ideology.
For the demonisation of Muslims and spreading hate against them, the Mughals have been projected as major villains of our history. Some earlier kings, like Alauddin Khilji, have also been under the hammer of the Hindutva narrative. So far, the demonisation of Muslims was structured around the destruction of temples by Muslim kings, contested vehemently by rational historians. The spread of Islam by Muslim rulers using their swords was another pillar of this vilification campaign. This is completely off the mark, as conversions to Islam took place due to social interaction with Muslim Arab traders to begin with. Later, many from the low castes embraced Islam to escape the tyranny of the caste system.
The ideology of Hindutva has gone to the extent of presenting this period as a dark era, likening it to a Holocaust against Hindus. No doubt, the era of the kingdoms is replete with wars for political reasons. Kings always wanted to expand their regimes, and in the process, many people were killed. To call it a holocaust is totally off the mark. The Hindutva narrative takes off from the communal historiography introduced by the British to pursue their ‘divide and rule’ policy. In this, all the motives of the kings are related to religion, and rulers are presented as representing the whole religious community.
The Hindu communal historiography took it further by claiming that Muslims and Christians were ‘foreigners’ who had tormented Hindus. The Muslim communal historiography presented the other side of the coin, where Muslims are regarded as rulers and Hindus as the subjugated populace.
The later trajectory of this logic helped the British to divide our composite land into India and Pakistan. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar articulated that there are two nations in this country, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah went on to demand a separate country for Muslims, Pakistan. Pakistan fell into the trap of Muslim communalism right from the word go. The textbooks in that country related the beginning of Pakistan’s ideology with Mohammad bin Qasim in the 7th century. Today, their history books have completely deleted any reference to Hindu rulers. The hate that Muslim communalism spread against the Hindus peaked with their school texts removing all the references to Hindu kings and their culture.
In a way, India, during the last three decades, has been walking in the footprints of Pakistan. The mirror image of Pakistan’s trajectory is being copied, probably to the last comma. This point was highlighted by Pakistan’s poet Fahmida Riyaz. In the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, she wrote: “Arre Tum Bhi Ham Jaise Nikle, Ab Tak Kahan Chupe the Bhai’ (Oh! you have also turned out like us, where were you hiding so far?).
Before the Hindutva ideology came to control the Indian education, the RSS shakhas were spreading the communal version of society through multiple mechanisms like its Shakha Bauddhis, Ekal Vidyalays, Shishu Mandirs. In due course, mainstream media and social media also came to its service.
As such, culture is a continuously evolving process. During the period of history under the hammer of Hindutva, a lot of social changes took place. Apart from the architecture, the food habits, dress, and literature, the synthesis in the field of religion, the noble traditions of Bhakti and Sufi traditions took root. It was during this period that Sikhism emerged and flourished.
Now this political ideology may have to change the track. With Muslim rulers out of the way, how will they demonise the Muslims now? Newer techniques may be on the way to substitute Aurangzeb or Babar, as now they will be defunct!
History is very central to the concept of nationalism. Erich Fromm points out that ‘History is to nationalism what poppy is to the opium addict’. Since the BJP came to power as the NDA in 1998, the major thing they did was called the “saffronisation of education”. Here, history has been presented with the narrative of glorious and brave Hindu kings versus evil and aggressive Muslim kings. The charge has been that so far, history has been written by Leftists, who focused on Delhi rulers and who were pro-Muslim. The point is that textbooks did present details of particular dynasties depending on the historical length of their rule.
The history books of the decades of 1980s had a good deal of presentation of Hindu and Muslim kings. The narration was not revolving just around religion, but the holistic view of communities was presented: trade, culture, literature, among others.
Still, it is true that ruler, ‘king-centric history’ is not what we need to build our future. We need to focus on diverse sections of society, Dalits, women, Adivasis and artisans who do not find much place in such narratives.
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Ram Puniyani is an eminent author, activist and a former professor at IIT Mumbai. The views expressed here are personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
