Not By The Textbook: When History Becomes Propaganda

"Why was Gandhiji shot?” Any schoolchild might ask this question. Textbooks or classrooms are expected to give the answer or the resources to the students to find the answer for herself. But the new Indian textbooks read like a visit to Delhi’s Gandhi Smriti. The reader or the visitor is informed: “Bapu was shot on the evening of January 30 as he was going to prayers.”

You’ll find a permanent exhibition dedicated to the life of Gandhi at Delhi’s Gandhi Smriti, which was once Birla House. From September 1947 until his assassination on January 30, 1948, Gandhi had made it his camp. It was from this place that he tried to stem the wave of anti-Muslim violence sweeping Delhi. It was precisely this Gandhian peace-making attempt that was detested by the Hindutvavadis.

They, in a conspiracy hatched in Pune, deputed Nathuram Godse with others to assassinate him. There were other Hindutvavadi organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which had warned Gandhi against continuing on this path of peace. “If he did not stop, we would be forced to silence him”, was the threat issued by the top functionary of the RSS. He was killed after that.

At the site of his assassination, the guide instinctively shows you the exact spot and informs: “Here, bullets hit Gandhi.” I couldn’t help asking: “Did the bullet just find him? Was Bapu in its path and it hit him? Someone must have fired the bullet that hit him.” The guide stays silent.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks are eerily silent, just like the Gandhi Smriti guide. They record the assassination in the most neutral tone: “Many Indians did not like his open-hearted nature. Despite this, Gandhiji refused armed protection and continued to receive everyone at his prayer meeting. Finally, on the evening of January 30, 1948, a young man shot him. His name was Nathuram Godse.” Naturally, a student will ask, “Who was Godse? Why did he kill Gandhi?” The NCERT book remains silent.

Until 2023, the textbooks weren’t so mute. Back then, the text read: “Many Indians disliked his open-hearted nature. Extremists from both Hindu and Muslim communities blamed Gandhi for their predicament. Those who wanted revenge or envisioned India as only a Hindu nation, analogous to Pakistan for Muslims—they particularly disliked Gandhi. They accused him of working for Muslims and Pakistan. Gandhi believed they were misled. He was convinced that if India became only a Hindu country, it would be destroyed. His steadfast advocacy for Hindu-Muslim unity enraged extremist Hindus so much that they made multiple attempts on his life. Still, Gandhi refused guarded protection and continued meeting people. Eventually, on the evening of January 30, 1948, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a Hindu extremist, approached Gandhi at his prayer meeting, shot him at point-blank range, and killed him instantly.”

But by 2023, all of that was erased.

The earlier edition also detailed the impact of Gandhi’s assassination on the nation, and what happened to organisations aligned with Godse’s ideology. The new edition obliterated all that. It did not reveal who Godse was. Was he a lone wolf? Or was he part of an organised conspiracy and a product of an ideology? The post-2023 school textbooks don’t answer these obvious questions. 

There was noise after the 2023 edit, but the NCERT remained unaffected. It continued, stubbornly, chiselling away at history—erasing truths without remorse. Now it has become a tool openly aligned with the ruling BJP’s agenda and the Hindutva ideology too.

Beyond books, it has rolled out supplemental material on Operation Sindoor. There are two separate modules—one for classes three to eight, and another for higher classes. The NCERT claims that the modules will instil patriotism, courage, national security awareness, and collective responsibility. They promise to teach students strategic thinking, technological innovation, and military capabilities.

The Indian authorities have not been able to provide details of the conspiracy behind the Pahalgam attack, yet the NCERT’s module is blunt—it was executed under Pakistan’s orders, it says. The Operation Sindoor narrative remains filled with unresolved contradictions. In the public arena, scholars and experts continue to raise questions to the government. The government, on its part, has been evasive or uses nationalist rhetoric to defame the doubters. But the NCERT modules do not tell the students about this debate. It only presents the official narrative. In that sense, this is not teaching—it’s propaganda.

There has scarcely been any public discourse on NCERT’s turn, or on the Partition-related material it recently published. That material firmly pins the blame for Partition on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Congress party, and then Viceroy Lord Mountbatten—while refusing to contextualise it.

For example, it omits the historical fact that it was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who had propounded the idea of categorising Hindus and Muslims as two separate nations. The Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS believed in it. Certainly, the Hindutva ideology sought a geographically unified India but it was to be a nation where Hindus would be privileged citizens and Muslims and Christians would have to live as second-class citizens without any political or cultural rights.

It was only natural for some Muslims, who refused to live like second-class citizens, to respond. Even a figure like Gandhi could not assure all Muslims that the ideology of Savarkar and the RSS was not the dominant ideology among Hindus. That led to a good number of them getting attracted to the idea of Jinnah. Whatever the case, Partition was a long and complex process. Scholars studying it would eventually come to this conclusion, though they often disagree.

If we are to engage with Partition, schools have a duty to expose the students to this debate. Instead, they now broadcast only the Hindutva version. Students who go beyond 12th grade and develop an interest in history might encounter the debate and engage with it—but such lucky ones will be few. The rest are condemned to a life shaped by propaganda.

History, or our understanding of the present, ought to help us see things as they are—not as power wants us to see them. Mughal history may vanish from Indian textbooks, Tipu Sultan may become invisible, yet in history books elsewhere, Mughals retain their space. Likewise, school books in India may remain mute on caste discrimination, but society—even classrooms—feel it glaringly. It is as evident as daylight. Children can then see that their textbooks shy away from truth and reality.  

German philosopher Walter Benjamin warned us: even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. In India, Hindutva politicians first attacked Babar, Akbar, Shivaji, then Gandhi, Nehru. Then they began purging textbooks to suit this narrative, this alternative truth claim that they make in their political speeches. Now, textbooks have become the megaphones through which they announce this Hindutva truth. 

School textbooks should act as a guide to truth. They should be windows to reality. Unfortunately, the new school textbooks in India have turned into walls that stand between the students and the world of reality and truth. 

(Views expressed are personal)

(Apoorvanand is a teacher and a writer)

Democracy is about ballots, but also about memory—who safeguards both, and who seeks to rewrite them? Outlook’s September 11, 2025 issue, 'Election Omission' probes these erasures—of voters, voices, and histories—asking what they mean for India’s democratic future. This article appeared in print as 'Not By The Text book'