Delhi University drops Delhi Sultanate paper from PG syllabus as history courses undergo major changes

The Delhi University has removed its course on the Delhi Sultanate for students pursuing postgraduation in the subject, the Indian Express reported on Friday.

This course dealt with the formation of the medieval state that ruled huge parts of the Indian subcontinent for an extended period of time, examined how rulers exercised authority, and the political, cultural, and religious life in India during the times, as per the publication.

Postgraduation students were being taught the paper 'The Delhi Sultanate: Structures of Authority in Medieval North India (13th-14th Centuries)' which has now been discontinued.

A number of other topics were also dropped in the third semester in the officially notified syllabus of the university that was published on 7 August.

Some of these topics are “History of North India, c. 1400-1550”, “Political Processes and Structure of Polities in Ancient India”, “Gender and Women in Early India: 1500 BCE to 1000 CE”, and “Religion and Society in Ancient Indian Literature”.

IE cited officials records to report that these courses were cleared during the approval process for the syllabus but were not part of the final notification.

The History Department of the Delhi University had proposed 38 Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) papers, out of which 16 were notified in the syllabus for Semester III, IE reported citing records.

Shift in policy post NEP 2020

The syllabus of the Delhi University has seen major shifts since restructuring of programmes began under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The latest revisions in syllabus for postgraduate students follows the changes made in its undergraduate programme starting 2022-23 in accordance with the NEP.

Although a paper in the undergraduate course does have a paper on the Delhi Sultanate, a faculty member of the department told IE that the two cannot be compared.

The faculty member also said that the paper now removed has been “a core medieval India paper for several decades.”

A member of the Faculty of Social Sciences told the publication, “a pattern of courses and papers, which were being taught for decades, being axed, especially in the Social Sciences, since the revisions for NEP 2020 have started both in undergraduate and post graduate syllabus revisions”.

DU’s Dean of Academic Affairs, K Ratnabali, told the publication, “None of the courses were held back. We took everything to the Academic Council, which gave the Vice-Chancellor the liberty to constitute an Expert Committee to look into courses that required review. The committee included three external experts, the Head of the Department and two Academic Council members.”