The White Lies Mughals

The new NCERT history textbook is undermining multiplicity and criticality, dispelling any possibility of dialogue, debate, or discussion

- Deepika Gupta

LOUIS Althusser, a French philosopher, proposed that schools are Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) that function predominantly through ideology rather than violence.

The recently released National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) textbook of history for class 8 titled Exploring Society: India and Beyond is the latest example of the State's ideological penetration through schools. The process that began with selective deletions of existing textbooks has found its culmination in the introduction of new textbooks that serve the agenda of the current political dispensation. The textbook vilifies the rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal dynasty as religious intolerants and labels their reigns as the 'darker periods in history'. Even Akbar has been considered as a brutal emperor who destroyed temples and favoured Muslims in the higher echelons of his administration. This is the first time that Akbar, the Mughal emperor with a syncretic religious approach and advocacy of universal peace, has been described as bloodthirsty and considered responsible for ordering a The textbook fulfils an ideological agenda that has been in the pipeline for a while now. Additionally, what it also does is undermine a multiple perspective approach towards learning history, thereby discouraging divergent thought and critical examination.