Mumbai: Mughals ruled in India for a long period, they produced remarkable rulers and left behind great architectural structures as well a significant amount of literature. No wonder they are covered in great detail in Indian school textbooks. The role they played in building the Indian subcontinent would be hard to forget.
However educational bodies across India seem to be making a conscious effort to ensure future generations of students don’t get to learn about such a significant part of the country’s history.
After Rajasthan wiped out Mughals from its text books, now Maharashtra State Education Board will replace the chapters dedicated to Mughal Empire with the Maratha Empire established by Chhatrapati Shivaji from the next academic year.
According to a report in Mumbai Mirror the Class VII textbook completely expunges portions about the Mughals and the Muslim rulers before them including Razia Sultana and Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Monuments built by these rules also don’t find any mention in the textbooks. So, we may soon have students in Maharashtra who wouldn’t know who built the Taj Mahal — one of the seven wonders of the world. They would also not know the history of the Qutub Minar or the Red Fort.
The report further added that the textbook keeps Shivaji as the focal point of medieval Indian history, while erasing paragraphs on Razia Sultana (the first woman to rule Delhi) and Muhammad bin Tughluq’s various eccentric decisions (shifting the empire’s capital, replacing all coins overnight) as well as the reign of Sher Shah Suri.
Apart from these instances, organisations have also made efforts to change NCERT books which are prescribed to CBSE students and are also read by civil services aspirants. RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, in July, sent recommendations to the NCERT, asking changes in the political science text books.