Marxist to Hindutva: How NCERT history book rows mirror a battle for India’s past

Marxist to Hindutva: How NCERT history book rows mirror a battle for India's past NCERT history textbooks produced during the UPA rule have undergone deletions and replacements under the Modi dispensation.

Key points

• 7 min read New Delhi Oct 3, 2026 06: 59 PM IST First published on: Oct 3, 2026 at 06: 01 PM IST.
• After the Congress split in 1969, Indira Gandhi fell short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha by regarding 45 seats.
• The books, which drew criticism from plenty of "secular" historians, were again replaced when the Congress-led UPA administration was in power from 2004 to 2014.
• From the 1950s began Marxist historiography in India, with D D Kosambi among the first well-known Marxist historians.
• New NCERT Class 9 social science textbook spotlights local resistance against 'foreign invaders' Delhi Sultans and Mughals, downplaying Rajput alliances (AI generated Image for representation).

New NCERT Class 9 social science textbook spotlights local resistance against 'foreign invaders' Delhi Sultans and Mughals, downplaying Rajput alliances (AI generated Image for representation). Written by: Vikas Pathak.

In its newly published Class 9 social science textbook, Understanding Society – India and Beyond, the NCERT has in a chapter on medieval history focused on resistance local kings offered to "foreign invaders" -the Delhi Sultans and the Mughals – with only a cursory mention of the alliance between the Mughals and Rajputs.

This marks a break: for decades, medieval history textbooks did discuss battles but additionally discussed in detail instances of cooperation between the Mughals and Hindu princes, apart from pointing out that the medieval times saw the development of a composite culture in India with the mixing of Indo-Islamic influences.

In practice, the period being talked regarding is the same, but the interpretation of the past has undergone a discernible change.

Indian history as a modern discipline was first written by the British after conquering the land. Much research has gone into how this history framed India's past.

Pointing out that colonial histories of India periodised the past as Hindu India, Muslim India and British India, historian Gyanendra Pandey argues that in so doing, colonial writers saw religion as the moving force in Indian history – something that they saw as the opposite of the "modern", "secular" west. Significantly, modern India was not characterised as Christian India despite the British rulers being Christian – thus projecting them as a individuals who could transcend religion as rulers and were thus "modern" in their outlook.

Indians, in contrast, were seen as intrinsically religion-driven. This additionally legitimised the presence of the British to "civilise the natives".

There are examples of this. In his History of British India written in 1817, James Mill saw a progression from a backward Hindu India to a more civilised Muslim India and then the most civilised British India – thus legitimising British rule and additionally seeking to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims. He additionally saw Muslims as "masculine" and Hindus as "effeminate", and denied the existence of any composite culture in India.

When Hindus and Muslims both rose in revolt against the British, V A Smith wrote a history of India where he portrayed "Muslim rule" as barbaric, after the Revolt of 1857. Such history writing became one of the instruments of the Divide and Rule policy.

With the freedom struggle came a new writing of history. It argued that the mixing of Hindu and Islamic influences had created a composite culture in India. The idea was to frame Hindus and Muslims as co-travellers in the national journey rather than as adversaries. Historian Tara Chand, who wrote Influence of Islam on Indian Culture in 1936, was closely associated with this shift.

Not just historians but freedom fighters contributed to this reading. The core argument of Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India is that while there were conflicts as outsiders came to this land, these were invariably followed by a grand resolution that set off creative developments. Nehru was appreciative of Akbar but critical of Aurangzeb for "setting the clock back" through his policies that angered plenty of local kings. Afterwards works of "secular" historiography have additionally sought to defend Aurangzeb by showing him to be a complex personality.

Along with Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai – a leader of both the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha – additionally produced a sharp distinction between the coming of Muslims and British to India. In his work Young India, Lajpat Rai wrote, "The Muslims. This person exercised political sovereignty in India from the 13th century up to the middle of the 19th century, were Indians by birth, Indians by marriage and Indians by death. They were born in India, they married there, there they died and there they were buried. Every penny of the revenues they raised in India was spent in India. Their bias, if any, against Hindus was religious, not political."

From the 1950s began Marxist historiography in India, with D D Kosambi among the first well-known Marxist historians. Here, "secular historiography" underwent a change. While medieval times were culturally seen in much the same way as nationalists earlier had, Kosambi turned his critical gaze on ancient India, demolishing what plenty of Hindus considered their beliefs through a sharply "rational" lens.

In his 1962 book Myth and Reality, he took up a number of such beliefs, arguing that they were myths and not history. He asserted in the book that his purpose was not to admire the "beautiful lily of Indian philosophy" but to look into the "swamp of popular superstition" from which it emerged. In this, there was a break with Nehru. This person saw myths positively as part fact and part fiction that pulled individuals out of the drudgery of everyday life and produced them believe that their ancestors did great things.

Meanwhile, the trend set off by Kosambi would emerge repeatedly among Marxist historians and those aligned with them, with historian D N Jha famously writing a book The Myth of the Holy Cow on beef eating in ancient India, thus suggesting that Hindu beliefs of the present were based on a myth.

Plenty of have since argued that a similar critical gaze was not turned towards fundamental Islamic beliefs in India, leading to the charge that this history writing was "biased". The argument regarding medieval India was that while the Ulema tried to put pressure on kings to impose Islam on subjects, numerous Muslim kings adopted an approach akin to what is considered "secular" or "cosmopolitan" or "pragmatic".

After the Congress split in 1969, Indira Gandhi fell short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha by regarding 45 seats. Given her shift towards the Left at this point – illustrated by the slogan "Garibi Hatao (eradicate poverty)" and policies such as bank nationalisation and abolition of privy purses – she obtained the backing of the CPI and some Independents to form the administration.

"The CPI was delighted to join in, seeing Mrs Gandhi's Left turn as an opportunity for expanding its own influence, " historian Ramachandra Guha writes in India After Gandhi.

At the time, the Left was the pre-eminent intellectual force, and not just in the country. Aligarh-based historian Saiyid Nurul Hasan. This person was a Communist, was the Union Minister for Education, Social Welfare and Culture from 1971 to 1977. Plenty of NCERT textbooks were authored by scholars with a background in the Left. JNU, set up in 1969, additionally had a Left slant primarily through its faculty appointments.

For context, the BJP's rise to power under Atal Bihari Vajpayee saw the replacement of old NCERT history textbooks – authored by scholars like R S Sharma, Satish Chandra, Bipan Chandra and Arjun Dev – with books authored by those like Makkhan Lal, Meenakshi Jain and Hari Om.

For context, the books, which drew criticism from plenty of "secular" historians, were again replaced when the Congress-led UPA administration was in power from 2004 to 2014. JNU historian Neeladri Bhattacharya was chief advisor to NCERT in the production of the new textbooks.

It is these textbooks that have undergone deletions and replacements under the Narendra Modi dispensation. It has seen "secular" historians in general and Marxist historians in particular as ideological adversaries.

Hindutva history writing sees India as foundationally Hindu and focuses on "Muslim conquest" in medieval times.

Though archaeologist B B Lal was a well-known scholar with Hindutva leanings, the Hindutva camp has yet to produce a historian of global professional repute.

In short, marxist to Hindutva: How NCERT history book rows mirror a battle for is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.