The new Class 8 NCERT Social Science textbook looks quite different this year — and not just in layout. Entire sections on Tipu Sultan, Haidar Ali, and the Anglo-Mysore Wars of the 1700s have been removed.
When Trinamool Congress MP Ritabrata Banerjee questioned this in Parliament, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary explained that it’s not necessarily the end of these stories. “Education being a subject in the Concurrent List… states have the flexibility to provide more coverage about regional personalities and events in their textbooks,” he said. In other words, if a state wants its students to learn about Tipu Sultan, it can add that content itself.
The Ministry says the new book has been designed under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Curriculum Framework (NCFSE) 2023. The aim, they say, is to make learning more “experiential” and “evidence-based” while cutting down on “content overload.” The people and events now included are those that fit the new teaching goals.
Instead of Mysore’s 18th-century resistance, the colonial history chapter now talks about the Sannyasi-Fakir rebellion, the Kol and Santhal uprisings, and 19th-century peasant movements.
But here’s the catch — most schools in India simply use NCERT books as they are. While states technically can add missing history, many don’t. That means millions of children could grow up never hearing about the fierce battles Tipu Sultan fought against the British, or how close he came to changing India’s destiny.
Supporters of the change say it encourages schools to focus on local history and avoids memorisation. Critics argue that trimming the syllabus shouldn’t mean erasing important national figures. As one history teacher in Bengaluru put it, “If we keep slicing away, our children will inherit a story with missing pages.”
For now, the “Tiger of Mysore” has vanished from the official NCERT narrative. Whether he returns to the classroom depends on each state’s decision — and on how much we value giving children the full, messy, complicated story of our past.
