NSCE -> NCSE History Syllabus
Class 6
Themes Objectives
An Introduction to History

When, Where and How
(a) The time frame under study.
(b) The geographical framework.
(c) Sources.		 Explain the specific nature of the discipline.


(a) Familiarise the learner with the major developments to be studied.
(b) Develop an understanding of the significance of geographical terms used during the time frame.
(c) Illustrate the sources used to reconstruct history.
The Earliest Societies
(a) Hunting and gathering as a way of life, its implications.
(b) Introduction to stone tools and their use.
(c) Case study: the Deccan.
(a) Appreciate the skills and knowledge of huntergatherers.
(b) Identify stone artefacts as archaeological evidence, making deductions from them.
The First Farmers and Herders
(a) Implications of farming and herding.
(b) Archaeological evidence for crops, animals, houses, tools, pottery, burials, etc.
(c) Case study: the North-West, and North-East.
(a) Appreciate the diversity of early domestication.
(b) Identify the material culture generated by people in relatively stable settlements.
(c) Understand strategies for analyzing these.
The First Cities
(a) The settlement pattern of the Harappan civilisation.
(b) Unique architectural features.
(c) Craft production.
(d) The meaning of urbanism.
(e) Case study: the North-West.
(a) Appreciate the distinctive life in cities.
(b) Identify the archaeological evidence of urban centres.
(c) Understand how this is used to reconstruct processes such as craft production.
Different Ways of Life
(a) The Vedas and what they tell us.
(b) A contemporary chalcolithic settlement.
(c) Case studies: the North-West and the Deccan.
(a) Appreciate that different developments were taking place in different parts of the subcontinent simultaneously.
(b) Introduce simple strategies of textual analysis.
(c) Reinforce the skills of archaeological analysis already developed.
Early States
(a) Janapadas to Mahajanapadas
(b) Case study: Bihar, Magadha and the Vajji confederacy.
(a) Introduce the concept of the state and its varieties.
(b) Understand the use of textual sources in this context.
New Ideas
(a) Upanisads.
(b) Jainism.
(c) Buddhism.
(a) Outline the basic tenets of these systems of thought, and the context in which they developed and flourished.
(b) Introduce excerpts from sources relating to these traditions.
The First Empire
(a) The expansion of the empire.
(b) Asoka
(c) Administration.
(a) Introduce the concept of empire.
(b) Show how inscriptions are used as sources.
Life in towns and villages
(a) The second urbanisation.
(b) Agricultural intensification.
(c) Case study: Tamil Nadu.
(a) Demonstrate the variety of early urban centres— coastal towns, capitals, religious centres.
(b) Illustrate the use of archaeological material including coins, sculpture, as well as textual sources to reconstruct social and economic histories.
Contacts with Distant lands
(a) The Sangam texts and long distance exchange. Suggested regions: the Tamil region, extending to south east Asia and the west.
(b) Conquerors from distant lands: north western and western India.
(c) The spread of Buddhism: north India to Central Asia.
(a) Introduce the idea of different contexts of contact between distant lands, and the motivating forces (including conquest).
(b) Examine the implications of journeys within the subcontinent.
(c) Illustrate the use of textual and visual material for reconstructing the histories of such contacts.
Political Developments
(a) Gupta empire and Harshavardhana.
(b) Pallavas and Chalukyas.
(a) Introduce the idea that strategies of expansion, and their logic, differ.
(b) Explain the development of different administrative systems.
(c) Understand how prasastis and caritas are used to reconstruct political history.
Culture and Science
(a) Literature, including the Puranas, the epics, other Sanskrit and Tamil works.
(b) Architecture including early monasteries and temples, sculpture, painting (Ajanta);
(c) Science.
(a) Develop a sense of appreciation of textual and visual traditions of the period.
(b) Introduce excerpts from texts and visual material for analysis and appreciation.
Class 7
Themes Objectives
Where, When and How
(a) Terms used to describe the subcontinent and its regions with a map.
(b) An outlining of the time frame and major developments.
(c) A brief discussion on sources.
(a) Familiarise the student with the changing names of the land.
(b) Discuss broad historical trends.
(c) Give examples of the kinds of sources that historians use for studying this period. E.g., buildings, chronicles, paintings, coins, inscriptions, documents, music, literature.
New Kings and Kingdoms
(a) An outline of political developments c. 700-1200
(b) A case study of the Cholas, including agrarian expansion in the Tamil region.		 (a) Trace the patterns of political developments and military conquests – Gurjara Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas, Palas, Chahamanas, Ghaznavids.
(b) Develop an understanding of the connections between political and economic processes through the exploration of one specific example.
(c) Illustrate how inscriptions are used to reconstruct
history.
The Sultans of Delhi
(a) An overview.
(b) The significance of the court, nobility and land control.
(c) A case study of the Tughlaqs.
(a) Outline the development of political institutions, and relationships amongst rulers.
(b) Understand strategies of military control and resource mobilisation.
(c) Illustrate how travellers’ accounts, court chronicles and historic buildings are used to write history.
The Creation of An Empire
(a) An outline of the growth of the Mughal Empire.
(b) Relations with other rulers, administration, and the court.
(c) Agrarian relations.
(d) A case study of Akbar.
(a) Trace the political history of the 16th and 17th centuries.
(b) Understand the impact of an imperial administration at the local and regional levels.
(c) Illustrate how the Akbarnama and the Ain-i-Akbari are used to reconstruct history.
Architecture as Power: Forts and Sacred Places
(a) Varieties of monumental architecture in different parts of the country.
(b) A case study of Shah Jahan’s patronage of architecture.
(a) Convey a sense of the range of materials, skills and styles used to build: waterworks, places of worship, palaces and havelis, forts, gardens.
(b) Understand the engineering and construction skills, artisanal organisation and resources required for building works.
(c) Illustrate how contemporary documents, inscriptions, and the actual buildings can beused to reconstruct history.
Towns, Traders and Craftsmen
(a) Varieties of urban centres—court towns, pilgrimage centres, ports and trading towns.
(b) Case studies: Hampi, Masulipatam, Surat.
(a) Trace the origins and histories of towns, many of which survive today.
(b) Demonstrate the differences between founded towns and those that grow as a result of trade.
(c) Illustrate how travellers’ accounts, contemporary maps and official documents are used to reconstruct history.
Social Change: Mobile and settled communities
(a) A discussion on tribes, nomads and itinerant groups.
(b) Changes in the caste structure.
(c) Case studies of state formation: Gonds, Ahoms.
(a) Convey an idea of long-term social change and movements of people in the subcontinent.
(b) Understand political developments in specific regions.
(c) Illustrate how anthropological studies, inscriptions and chronicles are used to write history.
Popular Beliefs and Religious Debates
(a) An overview of belief-systems, rituals, pilgrimages, and syncretic cults.
(b) Case Study: Kabir.
(a) Indicate the major religious ideas and practices that began during this period.
(b) Understand how Kabir challenged formal religions.
(c) Illustrate how traditions preserved in texts and oral traditions are used to reconstruct history.
The Flowering of Regional Cultures
(a) An overview of the regional languages, literatures, painting, music.
(b) Case study: Bengal.
(a) Provide a sense of the development of regional cultural forms, including ‘classical’ forms of dance and music.
(b) Illustrate how texts in a regional language can be used to reconstruct history.
New Political Formations in the Eighteenth Century
(a) An overview of the independent and autonomous states in the subcontinent.
(b) Case study: Marathas
(a) Delineate developments related to the Sikhs, Rajputs, Marathas, later Mughals, Nawabs of Awadh and Bengal, and Nizam of Hyderabad.
(b) Understand how the Marathas expanded their area of control.
(c) Illustrate how travellers’ accounts and state archives can be used to reconstruct history.
Class 8
Themes Objectives
Where, When, How
(a) An overview of the period.
(b) Introduction to the new geographical categories.
(c) An outline of the time frame.
(d) An introduction to the sources.
(a) Introduce the changing nomenclature of the subcontinent and regions.
(b) Delineate major developments within the time frame.
(c) Suggest how the sources of study for this period are different to those of earlier periods.
The Establishment of Company Power
(a) Mercantilism and trade-wars.
(b) Struggle for territory, wars with Indian rulers.
(c) The growth of colonial army and civilian administration. Regional focus: Tamil Nadu.
(a) Unravel the story of a trading company becoming a political power.
(b) Show how the consolidation of British power was linked to the formation of colonial armies and administrative structures.
Rural Life and Society
(a) Colonial agrarian policies; their effect on peasants and landlords.
(b) Growth of commercial crops.
(c) Peasant revolts: focus on indigo rebellions.
Regional focus: Bengal and Bihar. Some comparison with later developments in Punjab.
(a) Provide a broad view of changes within rural society through a focus on two contrasting regions.
(b) Show the continuities and changes with earlier societies.
(c) Discuss how growth of new crops often disrupted the rhythms of peasant life and led to revolts.
Colonialism and Tribal Societies
(a) Changes within tribal economies and societies in the nineteenth century.
(b) Tribal revolts: focus on Birsa Munda.
Regional focus: Chotanagpur and North-East.
(a) Discuss different forms of tribal societies.
(b) Show how government records can be read against the grain to reconstruct histories of tribal revolts.
Crafts and Industries
(a) Decline of handicrafts in the nineteenth century.
(b) Brief reference to growth of industries in the twentieth century.
Case-studies: textiles.
(a) Familiarise students with the processes of de-industrialisation and industrialisation.
(b) Give an idea of the technologies of weaving and the lives of weavers.
The Revolt of 1857-58
(a) The rebellion in the army and the spread of the movement.
(b) The nature of elite and peasant participation. Regional
focus: Awadh.
(a) Discuss how revolts originate and spread.
(b) Point to the changes in colonial rule after 1857.
(c) Illustrate how vernacular and British accounts can be read to understand the rebellion.
Education and British rule
(a) The new education system – schools, syllabi, colleges, universities, technical training.
(b) Changes in the indigenous systems.
(c) Growth of ‘National education’.
Case-studies: Baroda, Aligarh.
(a) Show how the educational system that is seen as universal and normal today has a history.
(b) Discuss how the politics of education is linked to questions of power and cultural identity.
Women and reform
(a) Debates around sati, widow remarriage, child marriage and age of consent.
(b) Ideas of different reformers on the position of women and women’s education.
Regional focus: Maharashtra and Bengal.
(a) Discuss why so many reformers focused on the women’s question, and how they visualised a change in women’s conditions.
(b) Outline the history of new laws that affect women’s lives.
(c) Illustrate how autobiographies, biographies and other literature can be used to reconstruct the histories of women.
Challenging the Caste System
(a) Arguments for caste reform. The ideas of Phule, Veerasalingam, Sri Narayana Guru, Periyar, Gandhi, Ambedkar.
(b) Consequences and implications of the activities of the reformers.
Region: Maharashtra, Andhra.
(a) Familiarise students with the biographies and writings of individuals who sought to criticise and reform the caste system.
(b) Discuss why the question of caste was central to most projects of social reform.
Colonialism and Urban Change
(a) De-urbanisation and emergence of new towns.
(b) Implications of colonial policies and institutions –municipalities, public works, planning, railway links, police.
Case-study: Delhi.
(a) Outline the nature of urban development in the 19th and 20th centuries.
(b) Introduce students to the history of urban spaces through photographs.
(c) Show how new forms of towns emerged in the colonial period.
Changes in the Arts: Painting, Literature, architecture
(a) Impact of new technologies and institutions: art schools, printing press.
(b) Western academic style and nationalist art.
(c) Changes in performing arts – music and dance enter the public arena.
(d) New forms of writing.
(e) New architecture.
Case-studies: Mumbai, Chennai.
(a) Outline the major development in the sphere of arts.
(b) Discuss how these changes are linked to the emergence of a new public culture.
(c) Illustrate how paintings and photographs can be used to understand the cultural history of a period.
The Nationalist Movement
(a) Overview of the nationalist movement from the 1870s to the 1940s.
(b) Diverse trends within the movement and different social groups involved.
(c) Links with constitutional changes.
Case study: Khilafat to Non Cooperation.
(a) Outline the major developments within the national movement and focuses on a detailed study of one major event.
(b) Show how contemporary writings and documents can be used to reconstruct the histories of political movements.
India after Independence
(a) National and regional developments since 1947.
(b) Relations with other countries.
(c) Looking to the future.
(a) Discuss the successes and failures of the Indian democracy in the last fifty years.
(b) Illustrate how newspapers and recent writings can be used to understand contemporary history.
Class 9
Themes Objectives
In all, five of the eight following themes are to be studied: two each from Units I and II, and one from Unit III.

Unit I: Events and Processes
In this unit the focus is on three events and processes that have in major ways shaped the identity of the modern world. Each represents a different form of politics, and a specific combination of forces. One event is linked to the growth of liberalism and democracy, one with socialism, and one with a negation of both democracy and socialism.


• In each of the themes in this unit students would be made familiar with extracts of speeches, political declarations, as well as the politics of caricatures, posters and engravings. Students would learn how to interpret these kinds of historical evidence.
1. French Revolution
(a) The Ancient Regime and its crises.
(b) The social forces that led to the revolution.
(c) The different revolutionary groups and ideas of the time.
(d) The legacy.		 • Familiarise students with the names of people involved, the different types of ideas that inspired the revolution, the wider forces that shaped it.
• Show how written, oral and visual material can be used to recover the history of revolutions.
2. Russian Revolution
(a) The crises of Tzarism.
(b) The nature of social movements between 1905 and 1917.
(c) The First World War and foundation of Soviet state.
(d) The legacy.		 • Explore the history of socialism through a study of the Russian revolution.
• Familiarize students with the names of people involved, the different types of ideas that inspired the revolution.
3. Rise of Nazism
(a) The growth of social democracy.
(b) The crises in Germany.
(c) The basis of Hitler’s rise to power.
(d) The ideology of Nazism.
(e) The impact of Nazism.		 • Discuss the critical significance of Nazism in shaping the politics of modern world.
• Familiarize students with the speeches and writings of Nazi leaders.
Unit II: Economies and Livelihoods
The themes in this section will focus on how different social groups grapple with the changes in the contemporary world and how these changes affect their lives.		  
4. Pastoralists in the Modern World
(a) Pastoralism as a way of life.
(b) Different forms of pastoralism.
(c) What happens to pastoralsim under colonialism and modern states? Case studies: focus on two pastoral groups, one from Africa
and one from India.		 • Consider what happens to pastoralists and pastoralism in the modern world, with the formation of modern states, marking of boundaries, processes of sedentarization, contraction of pastures, and expansion of markets.
• Point to the varying patterns of developments within pastoral societies in different places.
5. Forest Society and Colonialism
(a) Relationship between forests and livelihoods.
(b) Changes in forest societies under colonialism. Case studies: Focus on two forest movements one in colonial India (Bastar) and one in Indonesia.		 • Look at the impact of colonialism on forest societies, and the implication of scientific forestry.
• Discuss the social and cultural world of forest communities through the study of specific revolts.
• Understand how oral traditions can be used to explore tribal revolts.
6. Farmers and Peasants
(a) Histories of the emergence of different forms of farming and peasant societies.
(b) Changes within rural economies in the modern world.
Case studies: Focus on contrasting forms of rural change and different forms of rural societies (expansion of large-scale wheat and cotton farming in USA, rural economy and the Agricultural Revolution in England, and opium production in colonial India)		 • Show the different processes through which agrarian transformation may occur in the modern world.
• Understand how agricultural systems in India are different from that in other countries.
• Familiarize students with the idea that large scale farming, small scale production, shifting agriculture operate on different principles and have different histories.
Unit III: Culture, Identity and Society
The themes in this unit will consider how issues of culture are linked up to the making of contemporary world.		  
7. Sports and Politics. The Story of Cricket
(a) The emergence of cricket as an English sport.
(b) Cricket and colonialism.
(c) Cricket nationalism and de-colonization.		 • Suggest how sports also have a history and that it is linked up with the politics of power and domination.
• Introduce students to some of the stories in cricket that have historical significance.
8. Clothes and Cultures
(a) A short history of changes in clothing.
(b) Debates over clothing in colonial India.
(c) Swadeshi and the movement for Khadi.		 • Show how clothing has a history, and how it is linked to questions of cultural identity.
• Discuss how clothing has been the focus of intense social battles.
   
Class 10
Themes Objectives
Any two themes from the first two units and one from the third could be studied.

Events and Processes
1. Nationalism in Europe
(a) The growth of nationalism in Europe after the 1830s.
(b) The ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini etc.
(c) General characteristics of the movements in Poland, Hungary, Italy and GermGermany, Greece.


• The theme will discuss the forms in which nationalism developed along with the formation of nation states in Europe in the post-1830 period.
• Discuss the relationship/difference between European nationalism and anti-colonial nationalisms.
• Point to the way the idea of the nation states became generalized in Europe and elsewhere.
2. Nationalist Movement in Indo-China
(a) French colonialism in Indo-China.
(b) Phases of struggle against the French.
(c) The ideas of Phan Dinh Phung, Phan Boi Chau, Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh).
(d) The second world war and the liberation struggle.
(e) America and the second Indo-China war.		 • Discuss the difference between French colonialism in Indochina and British colonialism in India.
• Outline the different stages of the anti-imperialist struggle in Indochina.
• Familiarize the students with the differences between nationalist movements in Indochina and India.
3. Nationalism in India: Civil Disobedience Movement
(a) First world war, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation.
(b) Salt Satyagraha.
(c) Movements of peasants, workers, tribals.
(d) Activities of different political groups.		 • Discuss the characteristics of Indian nationalism through a case study of Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Analyze the nature of the diverse social movements of the time.
• Familiarize students with the writings and ideals of different political groups and individuals.
Economies and Livelihoods
4. Industrialisation 1850s–1950s
(a) Contrast between the form of industrialization in Britain and India.
(b) Relationship between handicrafts and industrial production, formal and informal sectors.
(c) Livelihood of workers.
Case studies: Britain and India		 • Discuss two different patterns of industrialisation, one in the imperial country and another within a colony.
• Show the relationship between different sectors of production.
5. Urbanisation and Urban Lives
(a) Patterns of urbanisation
(b) Migration and the growth of towns.
(c) Social change and urban life.
(d) Merchants, middle classes, workers and urban poor.
Case studies: London and Bombay in the nineteenth and twentieth century.		 • Show the difference between urbanization in two different contexts. A focus on Bombay and London will allow the discussions on urbanization and industrialization to complement each other.
6. Trade and Globalization
(a) Expansion and integration of the world market in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
(b) Trade and economy between the two Wars.
(c) Shifts after the 1950s.
(d) Implications of globalization for livelihood patterns.
Case studies: The post War International Economic order, 1945 to the 1960s.		 • Show that globalization has a long history and point to the shifts within the process.
• Analyze the implication of globalization for local economies.
• Discuss how globalization is experienced differently by different social groups.
Culture, Identity and Society
6. Print Culture and Nationalism
(a) The history of print in Europe.
(b) The growth of press in nineteenth century India.
(c) Relationship between print culture, public debate and politics.		 • The link between print culture and the circulation of ideas will be discussed.
• Familiarize students with pictures, cartoons, extracts from propaganda literature and newspaper debates on important events and issues in the past.
7. History of the Novel
(a) Emergence of the novel as a genre in the west.
(b) The relationship between the novel and changes in modern society.
(c) Early novels in nineteenth century India.
(d) A study of two or three major writers.		 • Show that forms of writing have a specific history, and that they reflect historical changes within society and shape the forces of change.
• Familiarize students with some of the ideas of writers who have had a powerful impact on society.