NCERT revisions renew the debate over colonial narratives and the need to reclaim Bharat’s civilisational heritage
NEW DELHI: It is not just a debate on adding or removing a few chapters from the NCERT textbooks being rewritten. It poses a much bigger question: Who wrote the history, how, and why? The controversial issue of historical representation once again came into focus in the national debate with the recent changes in the NCERT books, especially the new Class IX Social Science book. The new text places more emphasis on Indian resistance, on relatively indigenous, less prominent figures and political traditions that had been largely overlooked in previous texts. Indian history was written in a significant manner by the colonial categories for a long time.
British historians were clearly in an imperial framework: the intellectual justification for colonialism. India was often described by imperialists as a civilisational entity that was devoid of political unity, historical consciousness and self-governance, which led them to believe that British rule is a civilising mission. However, another aspect of colonial history that had a significant impact on how the Indian past was perceived by later generations was the division of Indian history into discrete Hindu, Muslim and British eras.
The historiography of India after Independence took a few directions. Nationalist historians worked to reclaim India’s agency and the psychological and political underpinnings of the freedom movement. Concurrently, Marxist perspectives gained popularity in Indian universities and in the production of textbooks, from the second half of the twentieth century onwards. Despite their contributions to economic and social history, however, the importance of any one historiographical approach may pose a problem if it starts to influence the identification of those people, events and civilisational experiences that should be highlighted. It is not the fault of the Marxist historians that they studied class, economy or material conditions. These are valid aspects of history. The issue is that class is the only prism through which the past is viewed, or the political and cultural prism is limited to the economic prism. There is not enough class conflict vocabulary to explain a civilisation. It is also a historical subject that includes and remembers its ideas, institutions, religions, philosophies, resistance movements and its notions of “dharma”.
The historiographical plurality is demonstrated in the history of 1857. It was often referred to by the colonial writers as a ” Sepoy Mutiny” or “Indian Mutiny”, highlighting military disobedience. V.D. Savarkar’s “The Indian War of Independence of 1857” work (1909), on the other hand, framed the uprising in a nationalistic light and viewed it as a nationalist movement against British rule. This alone shows that students must be introduced to more than one interpretation of the text and not just the one that is written by imperialists. The uprising of 1857 was a combination of soldiers, rulers, peasants, religious warriors and parts of civil society, although it was geographically uneven, ideologically heterogeneous, and not very well organised. It is better to teach students these complexities than to make it a simple military mutiny or deem the event a fully integrated modern national movement automatically.
This stands true for medieval history of India as well. The strengths and resistance of several Indian powers were not always considered proportionately in popular textbook discourses for several decades. The political and military history of the Rajputs, the defiant spirit of Maharana Pratap, the Sikh custom of sacrifice and resistance, the Maratha state-building project and many regional kingdoms need to be studied in the context of the nation’s history.
An attempt at wider representation is being made through these new NCERT textbooks, which highlight figures like Maharana Pratap, Queen Naiki Devi and the resistance of the Sikhs. For example, the study of Maharana Pratap shouldn’t be done as a character in opposition to Akbar. His life poses and raises questions of sovereignty, political autonomy, resistance and the interplay of power and principle. In the same way, the history of the Marathas and Sikhs is not just a series of battles and skirmishes; it is a history of political organisation, state-formation and resistance which had a significant impact on the subcontinent.
A more balanced representation is needed of Ancient India as well. Indian civilisation had a tradition of advanced philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, Yoga, Ayurveda, statecraft, literature and political thought. Texts should not romanticise history nor use colonial imagery to denigrate it. The right method of study is an ‘appropriate academic approach’ which would involve not only the achievements but also the shortcomings and limitations of the historical societies; but the students should also be taught seriously about the Indian civilisational achievements, as much as they are taught about the achievements of European or other civilisations of the world. The concept of decolonising the mind is crucial at this juncture. Decolonisation is not about replacing one ideology of orthodoxy with another. It involves providing opportunities for students to investigate the past using Indian sources, Indian categories and Indian experiences and be open to evidence and the scholarly debate. History of Bharat should not be written to meet modern academic standards, present India’s rich culture, and it should not go on to perpetuate past colonial or ideological ideas.
Thus, NCERT books need to serve a purpose beyond mere information transfer. They are the formatters of the historical consciousness of generations. The young Indians should be aware of the sacrifices of their ancestors, the resilience of their civilisation, the intellectual achievements of ancient India, the struggles of regional powers, the freedom movement and the diverse traditions that contributed to the making of modern India. The goal should not be to build a history of glory; it should be a history of confidence – a history in which Bharat is neither glorified uncritically nor made unnecessarily lesser. A mature nation can recognise that it has its complexities in the past and be justifiably proud of the civilisational heritage.
Rewriting of the NCERT textbooks should thus be based on ancient evidence, multiple sources and thorough scholarship but also on an underlying principle: Indian young minds should be exposed to the history of India from an Indian perspective. The next generation can only become intellectually confident to design Bharat’s future if it knows what its ancestors did, defended, sacrificed and transmitted.
