By Maktoob

Delhi University has dropped a long-running postgraduate paper on the Delhi Sultanate, along with several courses covering ancient, medieval and modern Indian history, from its newly notified Semester III History syllabus.

The paper, “The Delhi Sultanate: Structures of Authority in Medieval North India (13th-14th Centuries),” which was taught in Semester III, examined the formation of the Delhi Sultanate, political authority and culture, and the religious and spiritual traditions of the period, The Indian Express reported.

Other courses omitted from the new syllabus include “History of North India, c. 1400-1550,” “Gender and Women in Early India: 1500 BCE to 1000 CE,” “Political Processes and Structure of Polities in Ancient India,” and “Religion and Society in Ancient Indian Literature.”

Of the 38 Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) papers proposed by the History Department, only 16 were included in the Semester III syllabus notified on August 7. Several other papers remain listed as “under discussion” or “undiscussed” in university records.

The courses had reportedly been cleared at different stages of DU’s syllabus approval process but were not included in the final notification.

DU Dean of Academic Affairs K Ratnabali denied that the university had deliberately held back the courses, saying the Academic Council had given Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh the authority to constitute an Expert Committee to review papers requiring further examination.

According to Ratnabali, the department had made changes to some syllabi even after they were cleared by the Standing Committee, including adding or deleting papers, changing units and removing or replacing readings. She said this had created a “trust deficit” and led to the syllabi being reviewed again.

The committee, comprising three external experts, the Head of the History Department and two Academic Council members, cleared papers it found suitable for notification, she said.

The postgraduate changes follow DU’s restructuring of its undergraduate programmes under the NEP. In 2023, DU changed undergraduate History syllabus, including the removal of references to “Brahmanisation” and the dropping of a paper titled “Inequality and Difference.”

The Delhi Sultanate paper had been a core medieval India course for several decades, while “History of North India, c. 1400-1550” offered a specialised study of the period between the decline of the Delhi Sultanate and the rise of the Mughal Empire.

This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.