8 essential Mughal history books recommended by historians amid curriculum debate

A new generation in India will grow up not reading about the Mughals in their school textbooks. Cultural historian V. Sriram calls it “a great pity”. “The Mughal empire’s history was, perhaps, the best documented in Indian history. All the Mughals have been really very well served by historians at one time. While I agree that a sense of balance has to be brought by having the Cholas and the Pandyas, etc., you can’t wipe out an entire 500 years [of the Mughals] and a history which has had such a huge impact on the country. We are still living in the shadow of what they built,” he says.

On the other hand, there exist enough books of the Mughal empire’s biographies or narrative history that interested younger audiences can dip into. Here are eight recommendations by the historians Naman Ahuja, Sohail Hashmi, and Sriram: