Muslim rulers, social reform given excessive attention in NCERT, Kerala history textbooks: Report

The research report praised the Gujarat government's approach to history, wherein it 'underplayed the caste system and valourised Rajput women'

History textbooks issued by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) give "disproportionate attention" to Mughal rulers, a research report by a think tank presented before the Parliamentary Committee on education has claimed.

According to a report by the Economic Times, the research states that there is an average of 97 references to Emperor Akbar, 30 references to Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and Jahangir each, while Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji gets just eight mentions, and there are almost no references to Rajput kings Rana Sanga and Maharana Pratap.

The research also criticised NCERT and the Kerala textbooks for greater emphasis to accounts of Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Batuta, along with social reform movements and reformers, at the cost of ignoring the works of Chanakya, Bodhayan, Bhaskaracharya, Aryabhatta and the works of social reformers such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Swami Vivekananda, the report said.

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The think tank also claimed that the Kerala textbooks "black out" references to ancient India and Rig Veda, amplify the caste of saints who led the Bhakti movement and "downplay their philosophy and teachings".

On the other hand, the research report praised the Gujarat government's approach to history, wherein it "underplayed the caste system, valourised Rajput women and talked about the role women in ancient India played in society".

The research criticised NCERT textbooks for “excessive use of words such as gotra, jati, and varna” and said, “Gujarat textbooks, while mentioning the four varnas have not gone into their details, and have chapters on different temples of the country and how they survived assaults by invaders, an account missing in Kerala and NCERT textbooks. Kerala history textbooks, according to the research, has just a few passing references to the 1857 uprising, while NCERT makes it centred around Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, as opposed to Gujarat textbooks that have highlighted the role of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, Tatya Tope and Nanasaheb", the report said.

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It also claimed that textbooks of classes eight to twelve, in their chapters about modern India, gave prominence to Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, while leaders such as Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and Khudiram Bose were rarely mentioned.

The think tank recommended that desecration of be taught, particularly in the cases of Somnath temple, Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra and others, and highlight stories of Hindu kings such as Raja Dahir, maratha and Rajput rulers such as Tanhaji, Rani Durgavati and Rani Kiran Devi Rathore in the textbooks, the report said.

The education panel is expected to come up with its own report on redesigning the curriculum shortly, even as the Centre mulls changes to textbooks, ET said, citing people in the know.