Concerns about the state of democracy have surged in several countries amid new evidence that many citizens do not value democratic principles or accept election results. We theorize that support for measures restricting the political rights of the opposition will be higher among individuals who subscribe to ethno-cultural conceptions of national identity and associate the opposition with ethnic minority groups. Building on this argument, we hypothesize that interventions fostering perceptions that minority groups are central to national identity can strengthen democratic commitment. To test this theory, we examine whether inclusive historical narratives embedded in history textbooks affect perceptions of minorities’ place in the nation, as well as individuals’ willingness to place restrictions on the democratic rights of the opposition. We conduct incentivized online experiments across the world’s two largest democracies—India (N=2,049) and the United States (N=1,998)—randomly assigning participants to (1) inclusive educational content sourced from real history textbooks and (2) information about the political opposition’s ethnic composition. Using innovative revealed preference measures, we evaluate how our treatments affect democratic commitment. Our results show that while inclusive historical narratives tend to strengthen democratic commitment, they can also provoke backlash under certain conditions. Our findings highlight the important role of national identities in shaping support for democratic principles and indicate that battles over history education may carry consequences for democratic resilience.