'Broken away from old poverty, colonised narrative': Sanjeev Sanyal hails new NCERT books as right path for readers

Delhi’s school shelves are getting a colourful upgrade. Economist and Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council member Sanjeev Sanyal on Monday shared the first look at the new class VII NCERT “integrated social science” textbook, a single volume that blends history, geography and economics with full-colour photographs and contemporary case studies.

“The new NCERT textbooks for class VII are out,” Sanyal posted on X, alongside snapshots of glossy pages. “The economics section teach ideas using modern examples, and history tries to focus on storytelling rather than dates.”

Sanyal, who oversaw the economics chapters, said the rewrite breaks from what he called the “old poverty and gratefully colonised narrative.”

He contrasted the 2025 edition with the 2012 text that showed “images of schools from partition refugee schools, all technology was steam engines… the chapter on markets was about how fair-price shops and how shopkeepers were ‘hoarding’, and chapter on finance was all about women’s self-help groups.”

The update is part of a rolling revamp that began last year with class VI. “The class VI were published last year, so the same cohort will take up these in class VII. Now we’ll work on class VIII,” he wrote.

The post drew a wave of positive replies, with one user applauding, “Wow, glad to see this come to fruition… Seemingly, we are on the right path.”

A second user wrote, “Wow. This is absolutely amazing! I hope we can add some chapters on decolonial literature as well…”

Remembering the books of their time, another user wrote, “Thank you, sir. I remember studying NCERTs that barely had clear pictures, and books looked aeons old during my time.”

Reflecting on the same emotion, a fourth user commented, “Recently went through my brother’s 6th-grade history book. Much better compared to what we had to study.”

Sanyal acknowledged the feedback, saying further iterations will refine the material as class VIII revisions get underway.