The National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has drawn flak for its reframing of history textbooks where it is allegedly giving events and people in history an opinionated spin. At one point, they describe Babur as a “brutal and ruthless conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities”, and then label Akbar’s reign as a “blend of brutality and tolerance”. Additionally, they have eliminated women rulers such as Nur Jehan and Razia Sultan from the text. With Dr. Ruchika Sharma, The Wire discusses what this does to our understanding of the past and why this is dangerous for the readers of these books.

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