When history becomes a political tool, truth is the first casualty.
“In one country, a war is remembered as genocide. In another, as liberation. And in a third, a foreign conspiracy. History, as told in school textbooks, is not what happened it is what power wants remembered.”
Across the world, school textbooks are no longer just tools of education they are instruments of identity. From South Asia to Europe, the history taught in classrooms reflects not only what nations remember, but what they choose to forget.
When facts are trimmed to fit agendas and victories rewritten over losses, young minds inherit not memory, but myth. Classrooms become contested ground, and nations risk raising generations on distortion rather than truth.
Textbooks: Tools of Memory or Machinery of Power?
Textbooks are more than lessons, they are blueprints for citizenship. What they include or exclude often reflects a state’s desire to shape how future generations view their country, its enemies, and itself. As George Orwell warned:
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
South Asia: Rewriting Realities for Power
South Asia is no stranger to historical manipulation. From Pakistan to India, textbooks have long been curated to shape a particular sense of nationalism. While Pakistan’s ‘Pak Studies’ curriculum has often faced criticism for its one-sided historical accounts, proponents argue that in a new, ethnically diverse, post-colonial nation grappling with identity, these textbooks have served to foster national unity.
India’s education system, however, has emerged as the most contested ideological battlegrounds in the region. While Pakistan has long been accused of using textbooks to project a national narrative, India’s case under the BJP-led government reflects a more structured, widespread, and politically aggressive strategy: the rewriting of history in real time.
Despite inconclusive outcomes in real-world military engagements, Indian schoolbooks and media alike present them as triumphs of national valor. The aim appears not only to win public opinion but to secure textbook immortality solidifying a narrative that aligns with the ruling ideology. Between 2014 and 2025, Indian school curricula have undergone extensive changes across national and state levels. NCERT textbook revisions, for instance, have systematically removed or diluted references to Mughal rulers such as Akbar and Aurangzeb, as well as sensitive topics like caste-based discrimination, the lynching of minorities, the 2002 Gujarat riots, and the Babri Masjid demolition, extending far beyond the suppression of Operation Blue Star or the Chotta Bazaar massacre. Further, 2023 removals included any mention of Gandhi’s assassination conspiracy and the RSS, Jawaharlal Nehru’s contributions (especially on secularism), and details regarding mass protests against the CAA-NRC and farmers’ protests. Concurrently, state curricula between 2022 and 2024, particularly in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh, have actively glorified Veer Savarkar while omitting his apology letters to the British, and recast religious texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata as historical fact.
This aggressive revisionism extends to war narratives. The 1962 Sino-India War, for example, is now framed as a story of courage while systematically sidestepping strategic failure. Similarly, the 1965 Indo-Pak War is cast as a decisive Indian win, despite international consensus on its stalemate outcome. More recent events like the Kargil Conflict and Balakot Strikes (2016–2019) have been turned into tales of unquestioned victory in classrooms and cinema alike, largely disregarding international skepticism and Pakistan’s official rebuttals. And yet, even in defeat, India finds a way to script victory. Operation Sindoor 2025, widely seen as a strategic failure would be most probably hailed in textbooks as the BJP’s ultimate triumph of “New India.”
The Impact of These Changes
Ultimately, these distortions risk raising a generation on myth rather than memory, with profound implications for India’s future and its relationships. Such curriculum changes promote a Hindutva worldview by glorifying Hindu rulers while effectively excluding Muslim contributions. This fuels majoritarianism, turning India’s complex, pluralistic past into a one-dimensional Hindu nationalist saga. The result is often a hostile national identity, wherein children are taught to distrust minorities and neighboring nations. Furthermore, these revisions undermine democratic and secular values by erasing key figures and movements central to India’s pluralist evolution, inevitably damaging future diplomacy as generations educated on glorified and falsified victories rise to lead policy decisions.
France, Japan, and the West: Silent Lessons
The goal is often the same across the globe: produce loyal citizens, not critical thinkers.
In France, for instance, a deeply secular nation, public education employs textbooks that largely omit overt religious references to uphold laïcité (secularism). While this aims for neutrality, critics contend it also erases uncomfortable truths about France’s colonial past, such as the massacres and torture during the Algerian independence struggle, which are either briefly mentioned or entirely absent.
In Japan, decades of conservative influence have led to textbooks that refer to imperial expansion as a “liberation” of Asia. The term “massacre” is replaced with “incident.” These sanitizations have significantly damaged Japan’s diplomatic ties, especially with Korea and China.
In the United States, curriculum battles rage over how slavery, racism, and Indigenous history are taught. Indeed, a 2022 analysis found over 25 states introduced bills limiting how race and inequality could be discussed in classrooms. These cases demonstrate that even liberal democracies manipulate memory, proving that textbook distortion isn’t solely a South Asian issue.
The Cost of Distorted Memory
The way history is taught doesn’t merely inform students, it influences how societies understand themselves and their place in the world. When textbooks prioritize myth over fact, they shape generations with selective memory, limiting opportunities for empathy, mutual understanding, and reconciliation.
In South Asia, narratives embedded in school curricula have often reinforced national rivalries, making bilateral dialogue more difficult. In East Asia, unresolved tensions over historical interpretation, particularly between Japan, Korea, and China, remain obstacles to deeper cooperation. In the United States, ongoing debates over race, identity, and historical injustice continue to shape both civic discourse and policy.
Distorted or selective memory can solidify national cohesion in the short term. But over time, it may entrench divisions, inhibit honest reckoning, and complicate the pursuit of pluralism and peace.
Conclusion: Navigating the Past, Shaping the Future
No nation’s history curriculum is entirely free from bias. Each society chooses what to emphasize, what to omit, and how to frame its past. Yet, the more education becomes a vessel for ideology, the harder it becomes for students to critically engage with their country’s complex realities.
Recognizing history’s nuance, including its triumphs, failures, and contradictions, need not weaken national identity. On the contrary, it can foster resilience, tolerance, and democratic maturity.
As nations around the world revisit their pasts through the lens of present priorities, a central question emerges: should education serve to affirm established narratives, or to challenge and refine them? The answer may well shape the citizens, and the politics, of tomorrow.
