New Delhi: Delhi University has dropped the Delhi Sultanate course from its newly notified postgraduate History syllabus. "The Delhi Sultanate: Structures of Authority in Medieval North India (13th-14th Centuries)" paper was earlier included in the third semester.

The other long-running papers on ancient, medieval and modern Indian history which have been left out in the updated syllabus are "History of North India, c. 1400-1550," "Gender and Women in Early India: 1500 BCE to 1000 CE," "Political Processes and Structure of Polities in Ancient India," and "Religion and Society in Ancient Indian Literature,"" The Indian Express reported.

According to the report, records show that these papers were already cleared in several stages of approval but weren't included in the final notification issued on August 7. Out of the 38 Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) papers the history department had put forward, only 16 made it into the notified third semester syllabus.

A faculty member from the Faculty of Social Sciences told IE that the changes fit a pattern seen since New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 revisions began at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, courses taught for decades getting cut, especially in the Social Sciences.

Criticising the move, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) general secretary M.A. Baby wrote in a post on X, "Delhi University dropping the Delhi Sultanate paper from its postgraduate history curriculum while literally being seated in Delhi – the very seat of that Sultanate – is irony at its peak."

"Being in Delhi and attempting to erase Delhi’s own history requires some serious chutzpah. Next, will Delhi University drop Delhi from its name? Even worse, will DU’s postgraduate students end up learning that the beautiful structures in the nation’s capital, like Qutub Minar, Hauz Khas, Tughlaqabad Fort, Feroz Shah Kotla, Lodhi Gardens, and so on, were built by extraterrestrial beings, since medieval North India is being wished away?"

Further, the CPI(M) leader called upon academics, especially those who are pursuing the "historian’s craft" to "stand up to such efforts that seek to make a mockery of our higher education system".

"India’s history encompasses all its periods and offers valuable lessons for the future. We can erase them only at our own peril," he wrote.

According to the syllabus document placed before the academic council, the Delhi Sultanate paper looked at various historiographical readings of the 13th and 14th centuries. It covered how the Sultanate was formed, the political culture of the time, and the spiritual and religious traditions of the era as well.

The North India paper covered the stretch between the Sultanate's breakup and the rise of the Mughal Empire, Afghan political cultures, how power spread across different regimes, forms of patronage, literary cultures, and Sufism and Bhakti as forms of social and political authority.

It also took up debates around state formation, Islamisation, and intellectual life at the time. Faculty members said both papers had been part of the old 2019-20 syllabus and had been taught for years.

As per the IE report, before the August 7 notification came out, the history department had already raised am alarm. In a resolution dated August 4, sent to vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh, the department council pointed out that the new academic session had started on July 28, but the syllabus still hadn't been officially notified. "Without access to official syllabus, students cannot exercise informed choices for optional papers," the resolution said.

It also noted that apart from the papers already cleared in the academic council's agenda file, two other groups of papers were being treated as "under discussion" by the dean of academic affairs, who wanted more time to cross-check the revisions.

Commenting on the issue of syllabi change, Delhi University professor and columnist Apoorvanand wrote in The Wire, "Knowledge – its very disciplines – are today locked in a struggle for survival on university campuses in India. It is a bloodless war, but no less brutal for that. Most people in India remain blissfully unaware of this conflict and carry on with their business."

"The Department of History was informed that there was no need to teach so much global history. India’s own history, they were told, was deep and vast enough – why look beyond it? The department explained that nearly 70% of the syllabus already dealt with Indian history, and only 30% with global history. If historians did not learn about the wider world, would they not risk becoming frogs in a well? The chair of the department stood his ground," he added, in his December 2025 column, titled "'Indianisation' of Syllabi is Hollowing Out Knowledge in Our Universities".

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