The History Debate and School Textbooks in India: A Personal Memoir

The Sequence

I wrote two textbooks on Indian history for Middle School, one on Ancient Indian history for Class VI (age group 11-13) and one on Medieval Indian history for Class VII (age group 13-14). The books were used for about forty years with a couple of revisions. They were replaced by other textbooks in the last few years. The story of how these books came to be written and why they were replaced touches on much that is happening to history textbooks in many parts of the world. I would like to relate the story in the context of India and in the form of a personal memoir.

My first acquaintance with history textbooks for schools came about when I was asked by UNESCO in 1961 if I would review a sample of textbooks used in the teaching of history in various schools in the Union Territory of Delhi. I had never thought of such an idea before and it interested me so I agreed. The sample consisted of about twenty books if I remember correctly and I submitted the report fairly soon. I was appalled by the quality of the information that was being conveyed in these books, with an adherence to outdated ideas and generally colonial views of the Indian past, a totally banal narrative and predictable illustrations of a poor quality. I was thanked for the review and for the moment heard no further.

The review it seems coincided with a committee on history textbooks appointed by the government under the Chairmanship of Dr Tarachand. The Editorial Board consisted of the most eminent historians of that time: Professors Nilakantha Sastri, Mohammad Habib and P. C. Gupta. The Ministry had established a National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) as part of being generally alert to the problems of school education in India. One of its functions was to commission the writing of textbooks for school. Mr Chagla, the then Minister, a liberal and thoughtful lawyer, was concerned that textbooks in history should not recite myths but provide secular and rational explanations of the past.

It was presumably thought that if the books were to have some quality they would have to be written or at least supervised by academics recognized as authorities in the subject. Among the committee were three senior historians from Calcutta and Delhi Universities: Professor R. C. Majumdar who had written extensively on all periods of Indian history, Professor Bisheshwar Prasad who was a historian of Modern India, and Dr Dasaratha Sharma whose field was ancient Indian history. Subsequently R. C. Majumdar was made Chairman of the Editorial Board and he invited me to join it but I declined as I had just started writing the first book.

It was decided to start with Class VI and a book on Ancient India. Quite how my name came to be mentioned as a possible author is unclear to me. My initial reaction was that I wished to continue my research and not spend time on writing a textbook and furthermore that I had no interest or expertise in writing for children. However I was eventually persuaded by some of my colleagues at Delhi University where I was then teaching, who argued that this was a national cause and as such I should agree.

I would like to emphasize that even fifteen years after India became an independent nation (in 1947) the notion of a national cause was very strong. My generation had been imprinted with the nationalism of the forties and early fifties. Its essential characteristic was the sense of enthusiasm that we were involved in the building of a nation and could therefore move away from conventions to some degree so as to encourage the implanting of new ideas. It was from this perspective that I agreed to write a textbook for Middle School.

The syllabus that had been worked out had two concerns: that the child should envision the ancient past as more than just the recital of conventional 'glories' and see some of the multiple facets of life and action; and...