The Express has done well to reproduce the allegedly plagiarised passages ‘Rewriting Indian history, xeroxing world history’, IE, October 7. I am not a historian. Armed with a rudimentary knowledge of English, I tried to rewrite one of the original, plagiarised passages. The passage which was not even substantially modified by the NCERT authors went: “Shortly after the opening of the Estates General at Versailles in May 1789, the representatives of the third estate, angered by the king’s attitude, took the revolutionary step of leaving the body and declaring themselves the National Assembly.”

Here’s what a non-historian like myself can do to rewrite this information without plagiarising: “Several historians have noted that the king’s obstinacy after the opening of the Estates General at Versailles precipitated a crisis. The angry representatives of the third estate declared themselves the National Assembly in May 1789, and this was a definitive revolutionary step”.