A Dark Chapter in the History of NCERT
Ruchika Sharma | 03 August 2025 | National Herald
The recently released NCERT history textbook for Class 8 is riddled with a host of factual and pedagogical issues. While narrative shifts to suit the political party in power have been a common feature of NCERT history textbooks, this is the first time the National Council of Educational Research and Training has completely obliterated facts and ignored decades of academic research in Indian history.
For instance, the Class 8 history textbook completely misrepresents the history of jiziya, a tax paid by the non-Muslim population that exempted them from military service and made the State responsible for their protection. The new textbooks states that it was an incentive for the non-Muslim population to convert — such an assertion is not to be found in any Islamic literature of medieval India….