'Honest history, not ideology'—NCERT social science panel head on revisions in Class 8 textbook

India has been inclined to offer a 'very gentle' and 'sanitised' history, glossing over unpleasant things, but "we chose a different and honest route by exposing students to the 'black pages' of history as well", Michel Danino, chairman of the NCERT committee that has prepared the new social science textbooks, said in an interview to ThePrint.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) recently published the Class 8 social science textbook, as per the National Curriculum Framework and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The book, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, mentions cases of "brutality" and "religious intolerance" in the Mughal and Delhi Sultanate rule. The Marathas, however, are depicted in a relatively more positive manner.

Critics have termed those changes as an "ideological move" that selectively glorifies or demonizes historical figures.

In a Tuesday interview with ThePrint, Michel Danino, however, dismissed any ideological intervention in the composition of the new textbooks.

"No political figure visited us and said, 'You must include that, or say this specific person or piece of fact'. No ideological organization of any sort approached us to tell us, 'You must add this chapter', etc.".

Danino explained that thus far in India, there had been a tendency to create a "very gentle" and "slightly sanitised" version of history, "where we avoid all unpleasantness, thinking perhaps that this is going to, you know, traumatise the student and so on".

"We tried another way. To start with, we made a genuine one—disclaimer, if you prefer calling it so, to the pupil—that history has darker pages. And we were not, some writers in the media commented that we referred to the dark ages of the medieval times; we never refer to this term," he added.

In a 'Note on some darker periods in history', the disclaimer states: "No one should be held responsible today for events of the past."

Michel Danino clarified that the textbook touched on some of the brutality in history, especially in warfare. He indicated that although there has always been warfare, there are varying kinds—some with little effect on civilians, and others with great cruelty and suffering. The committee sought to emphasize the difference because it was a reasonable historical method, he added.

Danino also added that the textbook did not concentrate only on violence and negativity. "Despite media coverage, we didn't just write that Akbar was cruel in his young age. That attitude is derived from his own admission in his memoir, Akbarnama, where he narrates his military campaigns. You can make out, he's not very proud of his life, but he is truthful about it."

There is nothing incorrect about saying this—it makes us aware of the various sides of a historical personality. We tried to show the complexity of such characters and not carry out extreme characterizations, either too good or too bad."

'Marathas broke down the Mughal Empire'

The revised Class 8 textbook portrays the Marathas, who ruled over a 17th-century kingdom in western India, as rulers who established “sovereignty”, describing their founder, Chhatrapati Shivaji, as a “strategist” and “true visionary”.

It compares Shivaji’s defeat of the Mughal nobleman Shaista Khan to a “modern-day surgical strike”, highlighting that during his retaliatory actions, Shivaji was always “careful” not to attack religious places.

Rejecting "selective glorification" charges, Michel Danino declared: "We chose the Marathas because they had a significant—and broadly undisputed—role in breaking up the Mughal Empire."

"Remember, Aurangzeb lived the final 25 years of his life in the Deccan and could not return to Delhi. Though he was fighting other regional powers as well, the Marathas soon emerged as his primary concern. When he died, the Maratha Empire covered most of India, although only for a relatively brief duration," he said.

From the political historical context, Danino further stated, the Marathas were worthy of the Indians' attention.

"Whether we have overglorified them, I am not sure. For instance, we insisted on mentioning the Maratha raids on Bengal, which were very brutal and traumatised the locals. We could have omitted that if we were only overglorifying them, but we didn't," he said.

Danino continued: "I think some of my team members also wanted to counterbalance the neglect that the Marathas have suffered in previous textbooks, where they get very brief mention only. The Marathas needed much more attention than we could give them—for example, their system of administration was extremely innovative in many respects.

Critics have argued that the textbook does not go into as much detail regarding the violence of the Marathas—the raids in Rajput states or violent conquests of Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, ravaging local populations and compelling people to offer tributes known as 'chauth', or destruction of temples in Karnataka—as it does regarding the Mughals.

Michel Danino, however, insisted that it should not be simply a matter of stating something was taken away from or added to the textbook. The committee wrote the new textbooks in a different way, dealing with a far larger chronological span, he explained, and said that the text-book designing under the National Curriculum Framework was such that books were not meant to be heavy on text, and hence the committee had to devise "compressed timelines". "We took some decisions. There are things which have been excluded, and we have not refuted that."

We have been criticized for leaving some things unsaid, but in context—which I have detailed—it was inevitable. We have attempted to be faithful to history. There are several interpretations, including nationalist history, Marxist history, and so on. Good historians realize that no interpretation is ever definitive," Danino said.

"I think we can go for what I term as honest history—on the basis of the facts available—where we try to do justice to the past, even if we necessarily have to make some choices," he further added.

Incorrect picture of colonial era?

In accordance with Michel Danino, the committee generally believed that a large number of young Indians still have a fairly rosy picture of the Colonial Era without realizing the extent of the harm it inflicted. 

The new book is more critical of the history of the Colonial Era than the previous books.

Famines, at least, are now finally widely recognized," Danino added. "Although they were virtually non-existent in previous textbooks, these were, after all, man-made famines, or at least substantially exacerbated by the brutal taxation policies of the British, and the systematic withholding of relief from the victims.

Furthermore, Michel Danino pointed out that going face to face with these historical facts was vital for national self-respect. "We felt that any self-respecting nation owes recognition and respect to the victims of past atrocities—and these were atrocities."

He also pointed out the enormous economic exploitation India faced during colonial times.

"Plunder of Indian wealth is not in question—it is one the British themselves recorded. The figures reveal the enormous quantities of wealth drained from India through several avenues: outright taxation, establishing the so-called 'India debt', and enforced levies on colonial enterprises such as railway and telegraph building, the wars in Afghanistan and against the Sikhs, and even sending troops to quell the Great Rebellion of 1857," Danino explained.

As per Michel Danino, historical accounts establish the fact that India remained a wealthy and economically thriving nation prior to British expansion.

"There was intense agricultural production, active trade, and thriving exports—from cotton and spices to finished products. All this—wiped out in an incredibly short period. In less than a century, India became a severely poor nation," he averred.