Historians have attacked the revised textbooks for 11 and 14-year-olds, introduced by India’s Hindu nationalist party (BJP) for painting an imbalanced, inaccurate and pro-Hindu view of past events.

When the two books, Contemporary India Class IX Textbook in Social Science and India and the World-Social Sciences Textbook for Class VI, were released, dismayed teachers and heads found them badly written and littered with factual errors. Eminent historians said they were grossly “misleading and regressive” and left out chunks of history in a pattern suggesting a political agenda was being followed.

Jyoti Bose, principal of Springdales school, Delhi, said: “There are telling omissions and imbalances. The books deprive students of a wider perspective of history.” JS Rajput, the head of the National Council for Educational Research and Training, which released the textbooks, admitted that they might contain errors, but said this was the result of pressure from vested interests.

One glaring omission is the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, although there is an entire chapter on his movement.

In one book, Madagascar is said to be in the Arabian Sea, not the Indian Ocean. Fascism and Nazism are described as reactions to Stalin’s dictatorship and the Russian revolution is described as a “coup”. The British came to India, according to the books, because “all sea and land trade routes between India and Europe were controlled by the Muslim powers and Europe was restless to have access”.

The Class 9 book on contemporary issues says that the relationship between the United States and India was not very cordial until “Osama Bin Laden and similar other persons arrived on the scene in 2001. They have changed the whole world and virtually prompted the United States to join hands with India”.

Principals said they were left with no choice but to continue teaching from the earlier books or use other source material.