No chapter on Mughal courts for CBSE, UP Board Class 12 students now
NCERT has removed chapters and topics related to ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. 16th and 17th centuries)’ from history book under its new rationalised syllabus
Class 12 students of UP Board and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will no longer study the history of the Mughal courts. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has removed chapters and topics related to ‘Kings and Chronicles; the Mughal Courts (C. 16th and 17th centuries)’ from history book ‘Themes of Indian History-Part II’ under its new rationalised syllabus to be taught in Class 12 from the academic session 2023-24, state secondary education department officials say.
Similarly, lessons regarding the ‘Central Islamic lands’, ‘Confrontation of cultures’ and ‘The Industrial Revolution’ too have been removed from the Class 11 textbook ‘Themes In World History’, they add.
Under the now removed topics from the history books of Class 12, students were informed about “Akbarnama” (the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar) and “Badshah Nama” (chronicle of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan), Mughal rulers and their empire, composition of manuscripts, colour illustrations, ideal states, capitals and courts, titles, gifts and presents, royal family, royal bureaucracy, Mughal elite, information and empire, borders.
Beyond that, points such as questioning formal religion were also taught, said a senior history teacher of a UP Board recognised school in Prayagraj. Similarly, chapters like ‘US hegemony in world politics’ and ‘The Cold War Era’ have also been completely dropped from the Class 12 civics textbook.
‘Rise of popular movements’ and ‘Era of one-party dominance’ have also been omitted from the textbook ‘Politics in Indian since Independence’ taught to Class 12 students. In this, the nature of dominance of the Congress, Socialist Party, Communist Party of India, Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the Swatantra Party were taught. Lessons on ‘Democracy and diversity’, ‘Popular struggles and movement’, ‘Challenges to democracy’ have also been removed from the Class 10 textbook ‘Democratic Politics-II’.
Confirming the new rationalised syllabus of classes 10, 11 and 12, UP Board secretary Divyakant Shukla said the links of subject-wise rationalised syllabus for session 2023-24 made available by NCERT have been provided on the official website of UP Board—https://www.upmsp.edu.in. “Books published according to the rationalised syllabus too are now available in the market,” he added.
Reacting to the changes made, principal, Maharishi Patanjali Vidya Mandir, Prayagraj, Alpona Dey said, “NCERT books are being updated as per the provisions of the new National Education Policy (NEP)-2020. New content is being added by removing topics that have become irrelevant.” Changes in the syllabus were made from time to time which was a good thing, she added.