NCERT’s New Class 9 Book Puts Resistance at the Centre of Medieval History
NCERT’s new Class 9 social science textbook gives medieval Indian history a different organising theme. A chapter titled Resistance and Resilience (1000–1700 CE) follows rulers and communities that defended territory, challenged imperial power and maintained cultural traditions. Released as part of Understanding Society: India and Beyond, Part 2 on September 29, 2026, it places stories of resistance at the centre of a period also marked by alliance, exchange and political change.
The chapter forms part of a broader replacement of the older, separate Class 9 social science books with an integrated textbook. NCERT’s published Grade 9 syllabus identifies resistance, alliances and confederacies alongside art, architecture, languages, literature, the Bhakti tradition, fortifications and economic expansion as topics for the period. That syllabus is wider than a catalogue of battles; the debate now concerns how much space the textbook gives to each aspect.
What students will encounter
The new account highlights regional powers across the subcontinent rather than treating the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire as the only centres of the story. It includes Queen Naiki Devi of the Chaulukya kingdom, Rani Abbakka Chowta of Ullal, the Ahoms of Assam, Vijayanagara, the Marathas, Sikh leaders and Jat resistance to Mughal rule. Its treatment of the Delhi Sultanate is brief, while its account of the Mughal period concentrates substantially on challenges to Mughal authority.
That emphasis does not mean the book says there was no cooperation. It acknowledges relationships between the Mughals and the Kachwahas of Amber, for example. But its choice of chapter title and examples makes defence and continuity the principal route through roughly seven centuries of history. Compared with an account built around courts, administration and cultural interaction, the result directs students’ attention to different actors and questions.
The chapter also brings religious practice into its account of resilience. A passage on goddess worship describes traditions in which rulers were believed to have received divine protection or swords from goddesses. Those are presented as beliefs and traditions, not as independently established events. Elsewhere, the book discusses temple destruction and rebuilding, Bhakti practices and the development of Sikh resistance. These subjects have historical importance, but they also call for care in distinguishing a community’s tradition, a textbook’s interpretation and what particular historical evidence can establish.
Where a historian objects
The book’s treatment of the Sikh Gurus is one point of disagreement. It portrays Mughal actions against them as connected to discriminatory religious practices as well as politics. Medieval historian Ruchika Sharma rejects a primarily religious explanation of the Sikh–Mughal conflict. She argues that Guru Arjan’s support for Jahangir’s rebellious son Khusrau and later challenges to Mughal authority are essential to understanding how the relationship changed.
Sharma’s objection is to the weight assigned to competing explanations, not to whether the Gurus and Mughal rulers came into conflict. Her response illustrates a larger classroom issue: students can learn that an event happened while still examining why it happened, whose account survives and whether historians agree about its causes. The textbook’s own stated educational aim is to encourage critical inquiry and intercultural understanding.
The revised syllabus likewise asks students to examine how diverse regions and communities shaped history from 1000 to 1700 CE and adapted to changing political, economic and cultural circumstances. For teachers, that creates an opportunity to put the chapter’s resistance stories beside its references to alliances, trade and cultural development. No broad consensus among educators about the newly released chapter has yet been established; a named historian’s criticism should not be mistaken for a response from every classroom.
What has changed, then, is more than the selection of rulers and episodes. NCERT has given the medieval period a governing frame that asks students to look first at resistance and resilience. How well that frame supports the curriculum’s wider goals will depend in part on whether students are encouraged to investigate cooperation and competing interpretations with the same attention.
