New Delhi: In a first, the Class 7 NCERT social science book—released last week—has a chapter that highlights India’s centuries-old history as a “safe haven” for those “oppressed” and “persecuted” for their beliefs and religion.
Previous social science textbooks did not have such a chapter.
In Part 2 of the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s Exploring Society: India and Beyond, the chapter—‘India: A Home to Many’—lists Bene Jews & Tibetans among communities that have sought refuge in India.
The chapter, featuring under the theme ‘Our Cultural Heritage, Knowledge, and Traditions’, emphasises that ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the whole world is family)’ is not only a slogan but also has been a practice for millennia.
Besides Bene Jews and Tibetan refugees, it mentions Syrian Christians, Parsis, and the Baha’i community among the persecuted communities that moved to India.
The Armenians and Arab merchants are mentioned among the communities that initially moved to India for trade.
The book, specifically, says that “early Arab settlers in India came as peaceful traders, not as conquerors”, referring to the Arab merchants coming to India from the seventh century onwards, settling on the western coasts of Kerala, Gujarat, and Karnataka.
“They brought new ideas, culture, and religion, and played an important role in India’s history of trade and cultural exchange,” reads a line in the chapter.
Another chapter mentions the Arab invasion of Sindh, noting that the governor of Iraq sent Muhammad bin Qasim, an Arab military commander, to Sindh.
“While religious persecution has been experienced for centuries in many parts of the world, India developed a culture of peaceful coexistence and acceptance of various diverse faiths and schools of thought. This innate character of its people and culture has created a haven for the persecuted,” reads the book.
“There are also many cases where people came intending to conquer India but were conquered instead by our diverse culture, rich philosophy and knowledge traditions, unique geography and climate, and thriving economy,” it adds.
NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani told ThePrint, “The chapter has been basically added to show that people who have come here by any means and assimilated in Indian society, making it their home, and contributed just as the son of the soil—they have also got the opportunity to work, respect, and recognition—and made it their home.”
He denied that the chapter in any way draws its inspiration from the Citizenship Amendment Act, which deals with the issue of religious persecution and refuge.
“It is a historical past, and one can’t interpret it in the present context,” Saklani said.
The NCERT has been releasing new textbooks in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2023.
The first part of this book was released in April.
Communities escaping religious persecution
The chapter talks extensively about how the Parsis, the followers of Zoroastrianism, came to India, primarily to escape religious persecution in Persia or modern-day Iran, after the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century CE (Common Era, which is equivalent to AD but avoids religious reference).
Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the mighty Sassanid Empire from the 3rd-7th centuries. The book states that after the empire fell to Arab Muslim forces in the middle of the 7th century, Zoroastrians faced religious persecution in many forms—forced conversions to Islam, religious taxes (jizya), destruction of their sacred fire temples, as well as social and legal marginalisation.
“They were, therefore, forced to flee Persia. Unable to freely practise their faith, groups of Zoroastrians made the courageous choice to leave their homeland and sail across the Arabian Sea. Several groups of them reached India’s western coast (in present-day Gujarat) between the 8th and 10th centuries,” the book states, while mentioning “deep connections” between the philosophy of Zoroastrianism and India’s ancient Vedic schools of thought.
It also explains, in detail, the Tibetan community and how, from 1950 onwards, the People’s Republic of China overran Tibet and eventually annexed it. The 14th Dalai Lama was granted asylum in India.
“The Indian government rehabilitated the Tibetan refugees, provided education to their children, and facilitated the creation of Tibetan settlements to enable this community to make India a second home and preserve and promote its language, culture, and heritage,” the book states.
It mentions how the Baha’i community arrived in India in the 19th century after their leadership in Iran branded them as “heretics” because of their beliefs, adding they were “treated badly.”
Moreover, the book mentions the Syriac Christian community, which, facing persecution in West Asia from the 4th century, due to their beliefs and suspicions that they were aiding enemies, migrated to India. They settled on the Malabar coast in present-day Kerala to freely practice their faith and are now known as Syrian Christians, according to the book.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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