How are history books written for school-going readers in India? Here is an example

The Delhi sultans lived in great splendour. When the sultan went out, a special umbrella was held over him, and a band of musicians followed. The famous traveller Ibn Battutah, who was from Tangiers in north Africa, visited India in the 14th century, and described what he saw. He wrote that Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq’s court had a huge hall supported by 1,000 polished wooden pillars. Gold, silver, and expensive embroidered cloth and jewels were used by the sultan and the royal household. A single pair of shoes for the Sultan Firuz Tughlaq cost around 70,000 tankas. In comparison, an ordinary family with two children could live on five tankas for a whole month. A tanka was a silver coin, the old form of the rupee.

Even back then, the divisions between rich and poor were considerable. The nobles, ministers, local rulers, and even the merchants lived in huge palatial houses and had every type of luxury you could imagine. Lower government officials and even soldiers could live fairly comfortable lives. In the villages, there were rich farmers who rode horses and wore fine clothes. But ordinary peasants and labourers were quite poor and lived simple lives. A labourer could not have earned more…

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