NEW DELHI: The University of Delhi has removed a long-standing postgraduate paper on the Delhi Sultanate from its revised History syllabus as part of a wider reduction in elective courses under the new curriculum framework.
The paper, “The Delhi Sultanate: Structures of Authority in Medieval North India (13th-14th Centuries)”, which was earlier offered in Semester III, does not feature in the final notification issued on August 7. The course focused on state formation, political authority and socio-religious developments during the period.
Faculty members said the removal had drawn attention because the paper offered a specialised study of the Delhi Sultanate, unlike the broader undergraduate course on the subject.
Another Semester III paper, “History of North India, c. 1400–1550,” has also been dropped.
Several courses on ancient and early Indian history, including those dealing with gender, political structures and religion, are also absent from the final list despite featuring in earlier proposals.
According to sources, the History Department had proposed 38 Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) papers, but only 16 were retained in the notified syllabus. The remaining 22 courses were left out, with some still marked as “under discussion” in internal records.
A committee comprising three external experts, the Head of the History Department and two Academic Council members cleared the papers for notification, according to sources.
University officials said the revised syllabus is aligned with the Postgraduate Curriculum Framework (PGCF) 2024 under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and has been in effect since July.
The changes have drawn renewed attention to earlier syllabus revisions. In 2023, DU changed its undergraduate History syllabus, including removing references to “Brahmanisation” and dropping a paper titled “Inequality and Difference.”
In June this year, revised Class 8 Social Science textbooks by NCERT described the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal period as marked by “religious intolerance”. The changes, along with earlier removal of references to the Mughals and Delhi Sultanate from Class 7 textbooks, had drawn criticism from Opposition parties, which termed them “saffronisation.”
The latest restructuring has also raised concerns among faculty members over the reduction of specialised postgraduate options.
The History Department had raised concerns over the delay in notifying the syllabus before the August 7 notification. In a resolution dated August 4 and addressed to Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh, the department noted that the new academic session had begun on July 28 without an officially notified Semester III syllabus.