Let me outline what is being done to history as a whole, of which the current situation with textbooks is a part. I will put it succinctly: Indian historiography is undergoing its third distinct phase.
The first phase was the colonization of Indian history by colonial and colonialist historians. The second phase, beginning earlier but accelerating after independence, was the decolonization of Indian history by Indian historians. The third phase we are now entering is a re-colonization of Indian history. The changes to the NCERT textbooks are a part of that re-colonization.
For roughly 200 years, we were taught history within a framework laid down by James Mill in 1818. His model made religion the sole entry point for studying Indian history, dividing it into a Hindu period, a Muslim period, and a British period.
This framework had two fundamental flaws:
- It reduced history to the history of rulers and ruling dynasties.
- It insisted that history could only be understood through the religious identity of those rulers.
James Mill, a utilitarian, held a dim view of all religions, considering them relics of the past. For him, the modern British period represented a secular, rational statehood. Yet, by making religion the defining lens, he established a format that persisted well into the mid-1950s. I was a student in Delhi University during that time, and we learned this very history, even if the labels had changed to “ancient, medieval, and modern.” The basis of the division remained the religious identity of the ruler.
This was not just colonization; it was also communalization. In European historiography, the “medieval” period was defined as the antithesis of the “modern”—if modern was rational and progressive, medieval was irrational and regressive. When this periodization was applied to India, the “medieval” became synonymous with the “Muslim” period. Thus, all the negative attributes of the European medieval—backwardness, regression, irrationality—were transferred onto Muslim rule in India. The medieval was communally charged.
After independence, Indian historians, along with some non-Indian scholars, initiated a profound transformation. The scope of history expanded enormously, moving beyond kings and battles.
The pivotal change was introduced by Marxist historians like D.D. Kosambi, Irfan Habib, and R.S. Sharma. They substituted the “religion of the ruler” with class as the primary category of analysis. History was no longer about dynasties; it became about people—the exploiting class (often characterized as the state) and the exploited class (the peasantry). This was a history of class struggle.
This Marxist intervention, while powerful, also opened the door for other, non-Marxist perspectives. The landscape of history broadened to include:
- Feminist history, which could not be reduced to class analysis.
- Environmental history—the history of forests, rivers, and ecology.
- Cultural history—exploring notions of time, space, manhood, and femininity.
- New sources—treating literature and paintings not merely as references, but as history itself.
We left the James Mill framework behind 50 or 60 years ago. This expansion of themes, sources, and methodologies was the true decolonization of Indian history.
Now, we are witnessing a state-driven project of re-colonization. The goal is to return to the James Mill model, where history is solely the story of Hindu-Muslim antagonism, told through the lens of intolerant Muslim rulers and benign others. Every ruler is portrayed as intolerant, ignoring complex figures like Akbar, who famously said that an insult to any religion is an insult to God.
Their target is not the advanced discipline of history itself—it has moved too far beyond this simplistic binary for them to capture it. You will find no serious BJP-sympathizing historian on a panel like this because the field has evolved. Instead, the effort is focused on the school level.
Their strategy is to communalize young minds at the most impressionable age. Perhaps 1-2% of students will go on to study history at a higher level and encounter its decolonized, complex reality. The other 98-99% will carry the communal poison from their school textbooks for the rest of their lives, a poison now amplified by platforms like WhatsApp.
This is precisely what Pakistan did: it communalized its history entirely in terms of Hindu-Muslim antagonism. We must ask: What has that history done to their nation and its generations? The results are a cardinal lesson in the dangers of such an exercise. It is a tragedy that we are now following the same path that has already caused such damage to our neighbor, a country that was so recently a part of our own shared history.
By Prof. Harbans Mukhia
Harbans Mukhia taught medieval history for over 4 decades at Delhi University and JNU and retired as Rector of JNU. He has authored many books on the subject like: Exploring India’s medieval centuries; The Mughals of India; Historians and Historiography during the reign of Akbar; Perspectives in Medieval History; Feudalism and Non-European societies (co-edited with T Byres); The Feudalism Debate: French Studies in History (co-edited with M Aymard) and so on.
