Kolkata, Oct. 30 -- The West Bengal government has decided to undergo major revisions in school textbooks of language, history and literature. A committee headed by Kalyani University Professor Debasish Chatterjee has proposed replacing words such as 'paani', 'abba' and 'ammi' with 'jal', 'baba' and 'maa', respectively.
The change is part of a sweeping syllabus overhaul recommended by the committee appointed by the Suvendu Adhikari government in July this year, which also decided to insert the life of Hindu nationalist icon Syama Prasad Mookerjee and cut portions on Mughal rule and Marxist philosophy.
Explaining the proposed changes, Chatterjee said the words being removed were not commonly used in everyday Bengali conversations and would be replaced with terms more familiar to students.
According to senior state government officials, Rabindranath Tagore's 'Shivaji Utsav' and Dwijendralal Roy's 'Mewar Patan' (Fall of Mewar) have been included in the textbooks. However, the play on Siraj-ud-Daulah and Tagore's poem 'Africa' have been dropped.
The revised history books will also feature archaeological findings from Sinauli in Uttar Pradesh and Rakhigarhi in Haryana, an important Indus Valley Civilisation site. These findings have been cited in discussions challenging established theories on Aryan migration.
The government has also decided to remove chapters on the previous Mamata Banerjee administration's anti-land acquisition movement in Singur and its Kanyashree scheme, which provides financial assistance to schoolgirls.
Chatterjee said the committee had avoided extensive syllabus changes because of the limited time available for preparing the revised textbooks. The first version of the new books is targeted for release in January 2027.
"Time was very short. By January 2, the new books have to be delivered. More than 120 million books need to be published. So we didn't make any major changes to the syllabus this time. Instead, we made some minimum amendments and corrections that were needed," he said.
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had said on October 25 that the state government was undertaking a revamp of the school education system and was yet to receive the committee's final report.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.