NEW DELHI: The recently updated NCERT Class 8 textbook, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, offers a significant reappraisal of the Mughal period, particularly focusing on the reigns of Akbar and Aurangzeb. In its attempt to present a multidisciplinary approach to Indian history, the textbook outlines both the brutality and reformist zeal of these emperors. The depiction of Akbar, in particular, has become a talking point—described simultaneously as “brutal and tolerant.” Yet, while India debates his legacy in terms of governance and inclusivity, across the border in Pakistan, school textbooks project a starkly different narrative, often omitting inconvenient facts and elevating ideological adversaries of Akbar to the status of heroes.
The Siege of Chittor and Akbar’s Contradictions
The NCERT textbook includes a detailed account of the siege of Chittor in 1567, where Akbar is said to have “shown no mercy” despite months of fierce resistance from Rajput defenders. The text recounts how, following the eventual victory, Akbar ordered the massacre of 30,000 civilians and that hundreds of Rajput women committed Jauhar—ritual mass self-immolation to avoid capture. It quotes Akbar’s own victory proclamation, where he claimed to have “succeeded in occupying forts and towns of infidels and established Islam there,” and destroyed temples “with the help of bloodthirsty swords.”
These harsh realities of war and religious triumphalism are often absent from earlier Indian textbooks and are completely erased in Pakistani versions, which focus instead on the ideological opposition Akbar faced from figures like Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, a 16th-century Islamic scholar who would later be hailed as a precursor to the two-nation theory.
The Rewriting of Heroes: Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi
Pakistan Studies textbooks frame Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi as a spiritual and ideological counterforce to Akbar’s perceived heresies. He is described as a reformer who sought to purge Islam of “un-Islamic trends” and resist what was seen as the emperor’s deviation from Sharia. Though Akbar’s Din-e-Ilahi—a syncretic faith blending elements of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and other religions—is barely mentioned in NCERT, it is presented in Pakistani textbooks as a blasphemous distortion. Akbar is accused of banning the Azaan, converting mosques into warehouses, and even prohibiting the naming of children as Muhammad—claims with little historical evidence, yet repeated as fact.
These accounts serve to canonise Sirhindi not just as a religious scholar but as an early ideological architect of the Islamic state, said to have championed jizya (a tax on non-Muslims) and demanded the destruction of Hindu temples. This hagiographic portrayal is so pervasive that Sirhindi’s opposition to Akbar is seen as a formative moment in Pakistan’s historical imagination—even though his imprisonment by Jahangir (Akbar’s son) suggests he never truly wielded influence over the Mughal court.
Selective Memory: Akbar’s Policies and Sulh-i-Kul
While Din-e-Ilahi is ignored in NCERT, the text focuses instead on Sulh-i-Kul—Akbar’s doctrine of universal peace. This policy, based on tolerance and administrative pragmatism, led to the abolition of jizya, the appointment of Hindu officials, and efforts at interfaith dialogue. NCERT’s portrayal credits Akbar with stabilising and expanding the empire through inclusion rather than coercion.
In contrast, the Pakistan Studies curriculum presents the abolition of jizya as a betrayal of Islamic dominance. It claims this led to the “elevation of Hindus to equal status with Muslims” and “resulted in the loss of Muslim political hegemony in Indian society.”
Aurangzeb: The Mirror of Divergence
The divergence in historical narratives becomes even starker with Aurangzeb. The NCERT textbook doesn’t shy away from detailing Aurangzeb’s destruction of temples, including those in Banaras, Mathura, and Somnath, as well as Jain temples and Sikh gurdwaras. It notes that he ordered the demolition of schools and temples, reflecting his more exclusivist and orthodox rule.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Studies whitewashes Aurangzeb’s image, arguing that Western and Hindu historians “wrongly paint him as a religious zealot.” Instead, it claims that he “followed the same policies as Akbar” and “was tolerant, even by the admission of his enemies.” This is a clear attempt to sanitise his legacy, consistent with Pakistan’s broader historical narrative that frames Islamic rulers in glowing terms, regardless of the historical complexity.
History as Identity: What Gets Remembered, What Gets Erased
Both India and Pakistan use textbooks as instruments of nation-building, shaping how generations understand their history and heritage. In India, Akbar is presented as a complex figure, celebrated for his policies of inclusion but no longer insulated from his acts of violence. In Pakistan, Akbar is vilified for straying from Islamic orthodoxy, while figures like Aurangzeb and Sirhindi are sanctified.
As British historian E. H. Carr famously said, “Study the historian before you study the facts.” Nowhere is this more evident than in the conflicting portrayals of the Mughal Empire in Indian and Pakistani schoolbooks. The same historical figures are interpreted, misrepresented, or erased, depending on the ideological needs of the state.
Ultimately, history education in South Asia remains less about historical truth and more about constructing usable pasts—ones that suit present-day narratives of power, identity, and legitimacy.
