Bengal to exclude communism from syllabus

From next session onwards the history textbook of plus-two level would never be the same again for Bengali students. The final draft prepared by 19-member State Syllabus Committee suggests the founder of Marxism–Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, along with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 be excluded from the History text Book.

Talking to media, Abhik Majumder, syllabus committee chairman confirmed that the final draft that is going to be submitted to the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education the next week  has nothing to do with any kind of political inclination.

“We literally have no issue with Bolshevik Revolution, neither With Marx or Angels by individual. Rather we have thoroughly included the China Revolution, Mao-ze-dong episode to our final syllabus draft. It’s not that we have totally excluded the Marx-Angels chapter… they are there where consequence demands. But it’s true that we have excluded several irrelevant topics from the syllabus,”  Majumder added.


To replace the detailed communist history, the committee has suggested including the background history of Latin America, anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, Globalization, Democratic revolution around the world, Green Revolution, Chipko movement etc.


“The text books, particularly for the subjects like history are not supposed to be meant to form any kind of political ideology. So we have emphasized a lot upon the post-independence time line. To match up with the subject matter we have included the language movement of Bangladesh too,” said Majumder.

“As various chapters related to Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore were excluded from the syllabus, the reason is same for the Marx-Engels too,” he further added.


Though, a part of civic society has already started raising objection to the proposal as it’s been less than a year that Mamata-led TMC has taken the charges of government after 34 years left rule in Bengal.

Terming this as a ‘balanced approach to the history’ the syllabus committee chairman also added that that Marx-Engels chapter was not there in syllabus from the very beginning but included lately.