The Maharashtra State Education Board has excluded chapters about Muslim rulers in India and the Mughals from its history textbooks for Class VII and IX students, Mumbai Mirror reported. The chapters were a part of the previous edition of the textbooks. The study literature now primarily focuses on the Maratha warrior king Shivaji’s empire.
The latest edition of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government’s history textbooks for Class 7 and 9 students no longer include descriptions about iconic monuments, including the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minaar, and the Red Fort, which were built by these rulers. The textbooks, however, include information about the Bofors scam and the Emergency of 1975-1977 which are associated with Congress-led administrations, the report said.
Textbook content has been much debated recently, with critics accusing the right-wing administration of trying to portray a skewed version of history. “The need was felt to update history with modern events,” Kolhapur-based Bapusaheb Shinde, a member of the history subject committee for both versions of the textbook, told the Mumbai newspaper. “The Mughal history has been reduced. Modern history needs to be incorporated.”
Shinde said State Education Minister Vinod Tawde had met with representatives of the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini in 2016. The organisation is a think-tank promoted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, where the revision of the syllabus was discussed.
Tawde did not comment when the publication contacted him about the matter.
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