Opinion Removal of Razia Sultan and Noor Jehan from NCERT textbooks amounts to historical silencing

After all, Razia Sultan’s reign was not a fable or a passing episode that did not deserve a footnote. She ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1236 to 1240, after her father Iltutmish recognised her ability and named her as his successor, even when his court considered such a choice unacceptable. Razia proudly called herself Sultan and not Sultana, a decision that was both symbolic and practical. Unveiled, she dressed in attire that was meant to rule, held court in public, and led armies in battle.

And it was not easy. Her authority was constantly contested and her legitimacy questioned by Turkish nobles who were threatened by her nonconformist and independent mind. Razia was no puppet; she asserted her power, gained the confidence of her people, refused to bow down to the demands of the powerful “Forty Amirs”, and fought tooth and nail against their revolt. Despite being captured, she continued to fight to reclaim Delhi and died in the process. To remove her from the textbook is to remove the knowledge that such a rupture in patriarchy once took place in the heart of Delhi.

Noor Jehan, who was originally named Mehr-un-Nissa, is another inspiring story of a woman with extraordinary political skill. She forged a strong “junta alliance” with the support of her father, brother and stepson and practically controlled the entire reign of Jahangir, after his struggles with alcohol and opium addiction rendered him almost “powerless”. Far from being just a courtly charm as Jahangir’s consort, she issued imperial orders sealed in her name, designed gardens and commissioned architecture. She also intervened in matters of court appointments, trade, foreign policy and even military affairs.

Her role blurred the neat distinction between the Zenana and the court, between private and public power. Fondly hailed as “Padshah Begum”, Noor Jehan was indispensable at a time when the emperor himself was weakened. To willfully forget her is to suggest that the Mughal world was shaped only by men, that women did not participate in sovereignty, that Muslim women could never be figures of power.

The erasure of Razia Sultan and Noor Jehan belongs to the same pattern that has already removed portions of the Mughals and Tipu Sultan from school textbooks. Sociologist Jasmin Zine argues that Islamophobia is not only about demonisation, it is also about the structured invisibilisation of Muslims in ways that mark them as foreign or threatening. And when Muslim women are erased from history, they are subjected to this unique double exclusion. Not only are they made invisible as Muslims, but they are also denied recognition as women who exercised authority. The curriculum becomes complicit in a pedagogy that reproduces both patriarchy and religious exclusion.

While these deletions are defended in the name of “curricular objectives”, proclaiming that middle-stage textbooks will only have a broad sweep of civilisation, the argument crumbles under its own logic when we see how selectively the sweep is drawn. Tarabai and Ahilyabai appear as “mighty Maratha women,” while Muslim women rulers are not even marginal footnotes. This selectivity reveals the ideological nature of the project. It is Muslim women whose leadership is considered undesirable.

Unfortunately, what is lost here is not only historical accuracy but, more importantly, the imaginative horizon of our children in their formative stages of education. A young Muslim girl in India deserves to know that Razia was a “Sultan” who once ruled Delhi and that Noor Jehan once stamped imperial decrees with her seal, in the classroom. These stories will allow her to imagine herself as a political subject. When these stories vanish, so does a repertoire of possibilities. Patriarchy thrives not only by denying women power but by denying that women ever held it. Islamophobia thrives not only by vilifying Muslims but by insisting that they never really belonged.

This exclusion in the textbooks mirrors silences elsewhere in the social fabric. Be it the hijab ban in the educational institutes in Karnataka, digital hate campaigns like Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai or the recent rhetoric of hate against Col. Sofia Qureshi. Their erasure from history sits alongside these forms of exclusion, and together they form a continuum of gendered Islamophobia that can be seen in policy, media, and education.

Even if Razia Sultan and Noor Jehan are torn from the pages of the NCERT textbooks, the task before us is to make sure that their stories of resistance do not fade into collective amnesia.

The writer teaches at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi