Delhi University has withdrawn its course on the Delhi Sultanate from the postgraduate history programme, according to a report by the Indian Express on Friday. The removed paper covered the establishment of the medieval state that governed large areas of the Indian subcontinent over centuries, along with the exercise of power by rulers and the political, cultural, and religious conditions in India at that time. Postgraduate students previously studied the module titled ‘The Delhi Sultanate: Structures of Authority in Medieval North India (13th-14th Centuries)’, which has now been discontinued. Additional topics were also eliminated from the third semester in the revised syllabus officially issued by the university on 7 August. These included ‘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’. University records cited by the publication indicate that these modules received clearance during the approval stage but did not appear in the final notification. The History Department had proposed 38 Discipline Specific Elective papers, of which 16 were included in the Semester III syllabus. The changes follow broader curriculum restructuring at Delhi University under the National Education Policy 2020, which began with undergraduate programmes in 2022-23. While an undergraduate paper on the Delhi Sultanate remains, a department faculty member noted that it differs from the discontinued postgraduate module, which had served as a core medieval India course for decades. A member of the Faculty of Social Sciences observed a recurring pattern of long-standing courses being removed, particularly in the social sciences, during the NEP 2020 revisions for both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
