West Bengal government proposes changes to school textbooks

The West Bengal government is preparing significant revisions to school textbooks for classes 1 through 10, focusing on language and history. A textbook review committee has recommended replacing several words of Persian and Arabic origin with terms considered more traditional to the Bengali language. Proposed linguistic changes include replacing ‘pani’ with ‘jol’, ‘abba’ with ‘baba’, ‘ammi’ with ‘ma’, ‘kitab’ with ‘pustak’, and ‘aasman’ with ‘akash'.

Beyond vocabulary, the committee has suggested major modifications to the history curriculum. Recommendations include reducing content related to Mughal rule, British colonial history, and Marxist ideology. In their place, the curriculum may incorporate information regarding the life and contributions of Dr. Syama Prasad Mukherjee. Other proposed additions include Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Shivaji Utsav’ and Dwijendralal Roy’s play ‘Mewar Patan’, while certain existing works may be removed.

The committee, chaired by Debasish Chattopadhyay, is expected to submit a detailed report to the state government within 15 days. These changes are intended to align the curriculum with standard Bengali and are expected to be implemented for the upcoming academic session, with total revisions limited to approximately 10 percent of the content.