UGC NET history syllabus: all ten units of code 06 explained

How the paper is set for history candidates

Since NTA does not cut marks for errors, an unattempted history question is worth exactly the same as a wrong one: nothing. Answer every item. Paper 1 topics for every candidate are unpacked separately (UGC NET paper 1 syllabus), while rules shared by every subject are on the UGC NET syllabus overview.

Units 1 to 3: ancient and early medieval India

Unit 1: Sources, prehistory and the first states

• Negotiating the sources: archaeology, exploration and excavation, epigraphy, numismatics, dating methods, indigenous and foreign literature
• Pastoralism and food production: Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures
• Harappan civilisation: origin, sites, trade, decline, the first urbanisation
• Vedic and later Vedic society, debates on the Aryans, iron technology, megaliths of the south
• Mahajanapadas, the second urbanisation, Buddhism, Jainism and the Ajivikas

Unit 2: Empires and their successors

• Rise of Magadha, Alexander's campaign, the Mauryas and Ashoka's Dhamma
• Indo Greeks, Shungas, Satavahanas and Kushanas; Sangam literature and Roman trade
• Gandhara, Mathura and Amaravati art
• The Gupta and Vakataka age: land grants, coinage, temple building, science; Harsha's reign

Unit 3: Regional kingdoms to the early medieval order

• Deccan and southern dynasties: Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Pallavas, Cholas, Pandyas, Hoysalas, Kakatiyas
• Kingdoms of eastern, western and northern India
• Features of early medieval India: land rights, taxation, trade, Brahmanical religions
• State formation debates: feudal, segmentary and integrative models; Arab contacts, Ghaznavid raids and Alberuni

Units 4 to 6: the medieval centuries

Unit 4: Sources and political history

• Persian chronicles, Sanskrit and regional texts, travellers' accounts, inscriptions and coins
• The Delhi Sultanate from the Ghorids to the Lodis
• The Mughals from Babur to Aurangzeb, the Sur interlude and decline
• Vijayanagara, the Bahmanis and the Deccan Sultanates; the Marathas from Shivaji to the Peshwas

Unit 5: Administration and economy

• Sultanate administration, Sher Shah's reforms, Mughal mansabdari and jagirdari
• Vijayanagara, Bahmani and Maratha systems, including the Ashta Pradhan
• Agriculture and irrigation, village economy, crafts, trade, hundi, currency, famines and revolts

Unit 6: Society and culture

• Sufi orders, the Bhakti saints of north and south, women saints, the Sikh movement
• Position of women, rural society, madrasa education
• Mughal, Rajasthani and Pahari painting, music, Indo Islamic and regional architecture

Units 7 to 9: colonial rule to independent India

Unit 7: British expansion and governance

• Sources for modern India: archives, private papers, newspapers, oral testimony
• Portuguese, Dutch, French and English companies; British expansion and relations with Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad, Mysore and Punjab
• The revolt of 1857, administration under the Company and the Crown, constitutional changes from 1909 to 1935

Unit 8: Economy and society under colonial rule

• Land settlements, commercialisation of agriculture, drain of wealth, deindustrialisation
• Railways, banking, labour movements, famines and epidemics
• Peasant and tribal movements, social reform, the women's question, the press and new education

Unit 9: Nationalism and after

• Moderates, extremists and revolutionaries; Swadeshi; the Gandhian movements; Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj
• Left politics, the depressed classes movement, communal politics and partition
• Integration of princely states, Ambedkar and the Constitution, linguistic states, planning, foreign policy, the Emergency and economic reforms

Unit 10: historical method and historiography

• Meaning and scope of history, whether it is a science or an art, objectivity and bias, causation
• Heuristics, criticism of sources, synthesis and presentation
• Research design: hypothesis, primary and secondary sources, notes, footnotes, bibliography, thesis writing, plagiarism and ethics
• Traditions of history writing: Greek, Roman and Church; the Renaissance; Ranke and positivism
• Philosophies of history: Marxist, the cyclical view of Spengler, Toynbee's challenge and response, postmodernism
• Trends in Indian historiography

This unit is the one many MA graduates have never studied formally. It is also the most predictable, because the same thinkers and terms return each time. Make a one page table of historian, idea and key work, and revise it weekly.

Revising in the order the units connect

Ten units are too many to read in sequence and still remember the first by exam day. A better approach groups them into four blocks and cycles through them.

1. Block 1 (Units 1 to 3): five weeks. Start with Unit 1, because the source material it introduces (inscriptions, coins, excavated sites) returns throughout ancient India.
2. Block 2 (Units 4 to 6): four weeks. Read Units 4 and 5 together, since political history and revenue systems explain each other.
3. Block 3 (Units 7 to 9): four weeks. Keep a running timeline of acts, movements and sessions of the Congress.
4. Block 4 (Unit 10): two weeks, then 30 minutes a day until the exam.

Old question papers from NTA show the style of match the following and assertion reason items; see our UGC NET previous papers guide before your final month.

UGC NET history syllabus in Hindi

यूजीसी नेट इतिहास (विषय कोड 06) के पेपर 2 में दस इकाइयाँ हैं। पहली तीन इकाइयाँ स्रोत, हड़प्पा सभ्यता, वैदिक काल, मौर्य, गुप्त और प्रारंभिक मध्यकाल के क्षेत्रीय राज्यों पर हैं। इकाई चार से छह में सल्तनत, मुगल, विजयनगर, मराठा, प्रशासन, अर्थव्यवस्था, सूफी और भक्ति आंदोलन आते हैं। इकाई सात से नौ में अंग्रेजी शासन, 1857 का विद्रोह, औपनिवेशिक अर्थव्यवस्था, राष्ट्रीय आंदोलन और स्वतंत्र भारत शामिल हैं। दसवीं इकाई इतिहास लेखन और शोध पद्धति की है। पेपर 2 में सौ प्रश्न और दो सौ अंक हैं, गलत उत्तर पर कोई अंक नहीं कटता।

Reading material for the ten units

Begin with the NCERT history textbooks of classes 6 to 12 for a quick frame, then move to standard university level texts on each period that your MA syllabus prescribed. For Unit 10, a single introductory book on historical method is enough. Always keep the official unit list from the NTA website open, and tick topics off it; that list, not a guide book, defines the paper.

The master's marks rule and the JRF age ceiling are explained under UGC NET eligibility, and qualifying percentiles from earlier sessions are in UGC NET cut off. For school and college teaching tests beyond NET, browse teaching exams.