Mughals in NCERT Class VIII Textbook: An Inaccurate Retelling with a Communal Twist
Ruchika Sharma | 17 July 2025 | The Indian Express
The newly released NCERT history textbook for Class VIII, that covers the history of the Delhi sultans and the Mughals, is based more on gross factual errors and communal prejudices than on sound academic research. Take, for instance, the jizya, the protection tax paid by non-Muslims under some rulers of medieval India. It is described as a tool for “public humiliation” and a financial incentive for the non-Muslim population to convert to Islam.
This interpretation is, however, not found in any primary source of medieval Indian history. Levied by Caliph Umar as early as 634 AD in the newly conquered regions of the Levant, Iraq and Iran, the tax was paid by non-Muslims to be exempt from military service and be recognized as zimmis/dhimmis of the Islamic state entrusted with the responsibility (zimma) to protect the non-Muslim population. Nowhere in any Islamic literature produced in India or beyond is the tax associated with conversion of any form…