NCERT introduces the Delhi Sultanate, Marathas & Mughals in Class 8 Social Science textbook, highlighting differences between Shivaji and Babur or Akbar.
While there has been ample friction between all three Mahayuti parties, the statue collapse has especially caused cracks between the NCP and the other two Mahayuti parties to widen.
Prime Minister Modi made announcements during Navy Day address in Sindhudurg. He also said Govt of India is looking to increase representation of women in armed forces.
In ‘The World: A Family History’, British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families.
Udayanraje Bhosale and Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati have traditionally been cold to each other. But both are now demanding political action in the Maratha quota issue.
The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.
Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.
Sure we should not see things from a prism of Religion. But we certainly can see it from point of view of ethnicity. The sultans were foreigners and didn’t see the native people equally. Violence done by them on us should be shown as wrong and violence done by us on their constituents should always be shown as right on account of them being in the wrong place.
Good to see long due changes in the academic system of India along with it this Article would be even more better if it referred to Our kings with their Titles like adding “Chhatrapati” or even “Chh.” Before Shivaji Maharaj’s name as these small changes would be slowly instill in the readers and would eventually become a non negotiable part in our entire new generation, which would further help in the widespread awareness of our nation’s true heroes
Clever backdoor propaganda by equating Op Sindoor with some raid of Shivaji. They are making school textbooks a joke. Also I am sure Maratha reign would be shown in these books as some golden period with no “dark periods.”
“Balanced history” is only reserved for Muslim rulers.
Absolutely one sided article – you only got irfan habib and one other jnu joker.
Indian history, right from the concoction of the Aryan invasion theory has been deliberately distorted, by colonialists, Christians and Islamic scholars.
As much as the current efforts might appear laughable if they weren’t so dangerously corrosive, Mr. Irfan Habib is hardly in a position to pass judgment. He, alongside Ms. Romila Thapar, has arguably inflicted more long-term damage on the teaching of Indian history than any regime or curriculum committee ever could. Their decades-long ideological project—to whitewash the atrocities of medieval invaders, to recast centuries of documented violence as benign cultural exchange—has been less about historical accuracy and more about pushing a political narrative. In their zeal to absolve present-day Muslims of any association with historical misrule—an association no serious person was proposing—they’ve instead insulted the intelligence and lived memory of generations of Indians. Simultaneously, their emphasis on internal divisions within ancient Indian society seems almost calculated to forestall any cultural resurgence or sense of civilizational pride. By swinging the narrative so far to one extreme, they’ve all but ensured that the backlash would not halt at the center but lurch hard in the opposite direction.
When it comes to the ongoing controversy around revisionist textbooks, one is left wondering what the current government truly hopes to accomplish. It is, of course, not novel for regimes—left or right-leaning—to reshape history curricula in their ideological image; this is a familiar phenomenon across time and geography. The effort to correct past distortions introduced by leftist historians is, in principle, commendable and perhaps even long overdue. However, when the pendulum swings so far that it results in the blatant rewriting of established historical facts, the credibility of the entire educational apparatus begins to erode. Students will no longer place faith in academic textbooks; instead, they will turn to WhatsApp forwards and YouTube ideologues to fill the resulting vacuum—a prospect far more dangerous than the ideological excesses of any single government.
Are we to believe that our collective national ego, even after 75 years of independence, remains so brittle and unformed that it cannot look its past in the eye? Is it truly necessary to paper over uncomfortable truths in order to sustain a fantasy of cultural infallibility? The past cannot be retrofitted to suit present-day insecurities. It is high time we step off this ideological seesaw, stop weaponizing history as a tool of political warfare, and instead teach our youth to confront the past honestly—so they may face the future with clarity and confidence.
The “Textbook History” pendulum is swinging to the other side. Textbooks during previous governments refused to acknowledge atrocities of Muslim rulers and almost entirely failed to mention achivements of Shivaji, Viajaya Nagar etc. The hue and cry of rewriting history should also hold earlier omissions accountable for this trend and neither can be justified.
Sure we should not see things from a prism of Religion. But we certainly can see it from point of view of ethnicity. The sultans were foreigners and didn’t see the native people equally. Violence done by them on us should be shown as wrong and violence done by us on their constituents should always be shown as right on account of them being in the wrong place.
Good to see long due changes in the academic system of India along with it this Article would be even more better if it referred to Our kings with their Titles like adding “Chhatrapati” or even “Chh.” Before Shivaji Maharaj’s name as these small changes would be slowly instill in the readers and would eventually become a non negotiable part in our entire new generation, which would further help in the widespread awareness of our nation’s true heroes
It seems even the Print does not allow comments to say anything against Shivaji
Clever backdoor propaganda by equating Op Sindoor with some raid of Shivaji. They are making school textbooks a joke. Also I am sure Maratha reign would be shown in these books as some golden period with no “dark periods.”
“Balanced history” is only reserved for Muslim rulers.
Absolutely one sided article – you only got irfan habib and one other jnu joker.
Indian history, right from the concoction of the Aryan invasion theory has been deliberately distorted, by colonialists, Christians and Islamic scholars.
As much as the current efforts might appear laughable if they weren’t so dangerously corrosive, Mr. Irfan Habib is hardly in a position to pass judgment. He, alongside Ms. Romila Thapar, has arguably inflicted more long-term damage on the teaching of Indian history than any regime or curriculum committee ever could. Their decades-long ideological project—to whitewash the atrocities of medieval invaders, to recast centuries of documented violence as benign cultural exchange—has been less about historical accuracy and more about pushing a political narrative. In their zeal to absolve present-day Muslims of any association with historical misrule—an association no serious person was proposing—they’ve instead insulted the intelligence and lived memory of generations of Indians. Simultaneously, their emphasis on internal divisions within ancient Indian society seems almost calculated to forestall any cultural resurgence or sense of civilizational pride. By swinging the narrative so far to one extreme, they’ve all but ensured that the backlash would not halt at the center but lurch hard in the opposite direction.
When it comes to the ongoing controversy around revisionist textbooks, one is left wondering what the current government truly hopes to accomplish. It is, of course, not novel for regimes—left or right-leaning—to reshape history curricula in their ideological image; this is a familiar phenomenon across time and geography. The effort to correct past distortions introduced by leftist historians is, in principle, commendable and perhaps even long overdue. However, when the pendulum swings so far that it results in the blatant rewriting of established historical facts, the credibility of the entire educational apparatus begins to erode. Students will no longer place faith in academic textbooks; instead, they will turn to WhatsApp forwards and YouTube ideologues to fill the resulting vacuum—a prospect far more dangerous than the ideological excesses of any single government.
Are we to believe that our collective national ego, even after 75 years of independence, remains so brittle and unformed that it cannot look its past in the eye? Is it truly necessary to paper over uncomfortable truths in order to sustain a fantasy of cultural infallibility? The past cannot be retrofitted to suit present-day insecurities. It is high time we step off this ideological seesaw, stop weaponizing history as a tool of political warfare, and instead teach our youth to confront the past honestly—so they may face the future with clarity and confidence.
The “Textbook History” pendulum is swinging to the other side. Textbooks during previous governments refused to acknowledge atrocities of Muslim rulers and almost entirely failed to mention achivements of Shivaji, Viajaya Nagar etc. The hue and cry of rewriting history should also hold earlier omissions accountable for this trend and neither can be justified.
Biased propoganda as expected from a true momin