New NCERT textbook explains how ‘colonial powers stole India’s wealth’

The new Class 8 Social Science textbook of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) introduced to students in academic year 2025-26 describes the colonial rule of the European powers especially the British to be the one which “drained India of its wealth”.

Chapter 4 of the new NCERT textbook Exploring Society: India and Beyond states that, “…the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which required investment, was made possible at least partly by the ‘stolen wealth from India’.” ‘Stolen wealth from India’ is a phrase used by U.S. historian Will Durant, it states.

“The general thrust of Britain’s dominance in India was plunder, exploitation, trade dominance, imposition of educational, administrative and judicial systems, and Christianization,” Michel Danino, Head, the NCERT’s Curricular Area Group for Social Science, told The Hindu.

An official statement released by the NCERT said, “All the facts presented in this textbook are based on well-known primary and secondary academic sources. However, in order to avoid generation of any prejudice and misunderstanding, “A note on history’s darker period’ at page 20 has been added.”

The note states, “While those happenings cannot be erased or denied, it would be wrong to hold anyone today responsible for them…”

The fourth chapter goes on to include a quote by William Digby which states, “…Modern England has been made great by Indian wealth, …wealth always taken by the might and skill of the stronger.”

“A recent estimate for the wealth extracted out of India given by Indian economist Utsa Patnaik, in the period from 1765 to 1938, coming at 45 trillion U.S. dollars or about 13 times Britain’s GDP in 2023. Had this wealth remained invested in India, it would have been a very different country when it attained independence,” the chapter states.

“This was extracted not just through taxes, but by charging Indians for the colonial power’s expenditures on building the railways, the telegraph network and even on wars!” the chapter further states.

“In India, it is common to find the colonial period portrayed as a positive one, with the British bringing industries, railways, the telegraph, modern education, and so on. We have tried to correct this perspective by showing what really happened — the destruction of India’s indigenous industries and educational system, the enormous revenue extraction from the Indian population to finance railway and telegraph, etc,” Mr. Danino stated. “Of course we have also shown the other side — the opening up of India to the world and Europe’s discovery of India’s ancient culture, among others,” he further added.

The chapter also states that converting indigenous populations to Christianity was a powerful motivation (for territorial expansion of European powers). Colonisation led to loss of independence, exploitation of resources by the colonisers, destruction of traditional ways of life and the imposition of foreign cultural values, the new NCERT textbook states.

Portugese navigator Vasco da Gama “seized, tortured and killed Indian merchants, and bombarded Calicut from sea,” the chapter states. “The Portuguese presence was characterised by religious persecution… of Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christian converts…,” the chapter further says. It also highlights the destruction of Pondicherry’s original Vedapurishwaram temple, ordered by Joseph François Dupleix, Governor General of French India in 1748. 

The chapter states that the British systematically dismantled indigenous governance systems of village communities and replaced them with a centralised bureaucracy. “While presented as modernisation, this imposition of a foreign system unsuited to India alienated Indians from the judicial system, creating courts that were expensive, time-consuming and conducted in a foreign language,” it states. 

Traditional versus modern systems of education

The chapter states that diverse educational traditions such as padashalas, madrasas and viharas transmitted not only practical knowledge but also cultural values and traditions. It quotes from British reports which stated that hundreds of thousands of village schools were present across India (for instance, 1,00,000 to 1,50,000 of them in Bengal and Bihar) “where young natives are taught reading, writing and arithmetic, upon a system so economical … and at the same time so simple and effectual…”

Also, the chapter states that the system education proposed by the British became a powerful tool for the creation of a class of Indians who would serve British interests; it quotes Thomas B. Macaulay who emphasised that “Indians needed British education… to create a class of Indians who would be Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect.”

The chapter goes on to say that while a few prominent British Orientalists argued that Indian students should be left to study in their own languages, Macaulay’s policy gained the upper hand and India’s traditional schools slowly disappeared, while English became a language of prestige associated with colonial masters. This resulted in lasting divisions in Indian society between English-educated elites and the masses. 

“It also sidelined traditional sources of knowledge and authority, creating generations of Indians disconnected from their own cultural heritage,” the chapter states. 

Addition of a chapter on the Maratha Empire

The new NCERT textbook, unlike the earlier ones that made a passing reference to the Marathas, has now introduced an entire chapter dedicated to ‘The Rise of the Marathas’.

“In effect, the British took India from the Marathas more than from the Mughals or any other power,” the NCERT textbook states. Marathas have been described as “a powerful political entity that will alter the course of India’s history”. The chapter talks about Shivaji’s need to establish a navy as a “revolutionary step” and his exploits as “legendary”.

The chapter goes on to state that when Shivaji attacked Surat, which was a wealthy port city in Mughal Empire, he obtained an enormous treasure of almost one crore rupees, but was careful not to attack religious places. In contrast, the Mughal rulers (like Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb) have been described as “brutal” in the previous chapter titled ‘Reshaping India’s Political Map’. The chapter says they “destroyed temples” and their rule was fraught with “religious intolerance.” 

In contrast, Shivaji has been described as “a devout Hindu… who rebuilt desecrated temples, promoted Sanskrit and Marathi literature, religious institutions and traditional arts”.

Ahilyabai Holkar, an 18th century Maratha ruler, has been described as “a devout person who built and restored hundreds of temples, ghats, wells and roads throughout India, from Kedarnath in north to Rameswaram in south. She rebuilt the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi that had been destroyed by Aurangzeb and Somnath temple in Gujarat destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni,” the chapter states. 

‘Evolution of India’

“Class 8 being the last year of the middle stage, the students are expected to acquire a broad multi-perspective understanding of our past between 13th to mid-19th century and how the various events of that period have helped shape and influenced the evolution of India of today,” a official statement from the NCERT said. 

“This textbook attempts to provide an idea about the geography, history (medieval & modern), economic life and governance of the country, from a multi-disciplinary perspective in an integrated way,” it says. 

“Our aim has been to consistently avoid attempting to load the child with too much information and to develop a critical understanding of the subject. Hence , the various facts, have been presented in a comprehensible manner to promote holistic learning in this textbook,” the statement further said.