“Of all the social sciences, it is history which rouses the greatest interest in the minds of the politicians. There are various reasons for this. It has always had an inventive and purposive use. The line between history and mythology is thought to be thin; the past can be used to lend legitimacy to any aspect of the present….”

R. Mahalakshmi, ‘Communalising history textbooks’

Resource list:

• Extract published from ‘RSS and School Education’ from the book RSS, School Texts and the Murder of Mahatma Gandhi, written by Aditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee and Sucheta Mahajan, 2008. Published by Indian History Collective.
• R. Mahalakshmi, ‘Communalising history textbooks’ Frontline, 2 August 2021
• Sylvie Guichard. The Construction of History and Nationalism in India. Textbooks, Controversies and Politics. London / New York: Routledge, 2010.
• Kusha Anand & Marie Lall (2022) The debate between secularism and Hindu nationalism – how India’s textbooks have become the government’s medium for political communication, India Review, 21:1, 77-107, DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018203
• Neeladri Bhattacharya, ‘Teaching History in Schools: The Politics of Textbooks in India.’ History Workshop Journal, no. 67 (2009): 99–110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646212.
• Romila Thapar, “The History Debate and School Textbooks in India: A Personal Memoir.” History Workshop Journal, no. 67 (2009): 87–98. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646211.
• Sanjay Joshi, Contesting histories and nationalist geographies: A comparison of school textbooks in India and Pakistan. South Asian History and Culture. 1. (2010) 357-377. 10.1080/19472498.2010.485379.
• Yuji Kuronuma, ‘Hindu nationalism creeping into Indian textbooks’ Asia Nikkei, 25 June 2016.
• Alex Traub, ‘India’s Dangerous New Curriculum’ The New York Review, 6 December 2018
• S. S. Dikshit, Nationalism and Indian Education, Sterling Publishers, 1966.
• Raksha Kumar, ‘Hindu right rewriting Indian textbooks’ Al Jazeera, 4 Nov 2014.
• Eviane Leidig ‘Rewriting history: The ongoing controversy over textbooks in India’ LSE Blogs 1 June 2016.
• Aminah Mohammad-Arif, “Textbooks, nationalism and history writing in India and Pakistan.” In Veronique Benei (ed) Manufacturing Citizenship, pp. 143-169. Routledge, 2007.
• Murali Krishnan, ‘Is the BJP altering textbooks to promote Hindu nationalism?’ DW 25 May 2022.
• Seema Chishti, ‘Rewriting India’s History Through School Textbooks’ New Lines Magazine, 9 March 2023.
• Kamala Visweswaran; Michael Witzel; Nandini Manjrekar; Dipta Bhog; Uma Chakravarti, “The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 10, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2009): 101-112.
• Naseem, Mohamed Ayaz, Ratna Ghosh, James McGill, and William C. Mcdonald. “Construction of the ‘other’in history textbooks in India and Pakistan.” In Interculturalism, society and education, pp. 37-44. Brill, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789460912498_004
• Sridhar, M., and Sunita Mishra, eds. Language Policy and Education in India: Documents, contexts and debates. Routledge, 2016.
• Krishan Kumar, Political agenda of education: A study of colonialist and nationalist ideas. SAGE Publications India, 2005.
• Sanjay Seth. “Rewriting histories of nationalism: The politics of “moderate nationalism” in India, 1870–1905.” The American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (1999): 95-116. https://doi.org/10.2307/2650182
• Carey A Watt. “Education for National Efficiency: Constructive Nationalism in North India, 1909–1916.” Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (1997): 339-374. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X00014335
• Lars Tore Flåten, Hindu nationalism, history and identity in India: Narrating a Hindu past under the BJP. Taylor & Francis, 2016.
• Marie Lall, “Educate to hate: The use of education in the creation of antagonistic national identities in India and Pakistan.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 38.1 (2008): 103-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057920701467834
• Janaki Nair, “Textbook Controversies and the Demand for a Past: Public Lives of Indian History.” History Workshop Journal. Vol. 82. No. 1, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbw023
• Romila Thapar, “Politics and the rewriting of history in India.” Critical Quarterly 47.1‐2 (2005): 195-203.