Hinduphobia in West Bengal Textbooks – Lord Ram denigrated as a Nomadic Outsider

In Class VI Text Book of West Bengal Govt Schools, Ram has been described as a Nomadic Character. The book describes the word ‘Ram’ in Sanskrit to mean ‘Roaming’. It also falsely claims that the Sanskrit word ‘Ram’ has evolved from the English word ‘Roaming’ since both say the same— wandering. The book thus manipulatively tried to establish its false claim that Ram was a wanderer, a Nomadic who entered our land as he was roaming around and gradually defeated the original inhabitants of this land.

The History Text Book of Class VI, titled “Otit O Oitihyo” (Past and Heritage) presents false claims of Aryan Invasion on our land. It vilifies Ram without mentioning any scholarly reference of Valmiki Ramayana. Madhya Shiksha Parshad, i.e. West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, didn’t hesitate to denigrate the great epic Ramayana that represents our ethos from time immemorial. Did WBBSE fail to perceive that calumniating Ram as a Nomadic would amount to humiliate one of the Great Epics of Human Civilization? Perhaps not.

The objective of such a false portrayal of Lord Ram appears to be politically motivated. It perhaps aims at imbibing the idea that Lord Ram was no one of this land but an invader. This, further, is possibly to justify and morally defend those who indeed invaded our land and our lingo-cultural heritage bringing in distortions to our socio-cultural outlook. Equating Lord Ram with exogenous expansionist invaders and attempting to ingrain such a thought process into the psyche of innocent children at a very early age is an obnoxious conspiracy against our heritage. Criticism of such shameless and cunning attempts of misinforming little children should not be toned down.

Despite tireless efforts rendered by Lefts and Ultra-lefts to wipe off the spiritual and social impact of Lord Ram, he was and still is a part of Bengali life and psyche. Valmiki Ramayana was translated and written in Bengali by Mahakavi Krittibas Ojha who was born in 1381 and died in 1461. It may be mentioned here that Poet Tulsidas was born in 1511 and died in 1623. This proves that Krittibasi Ramayana was written much before Ramcharitmanas. Krittibasi Ramayana used to be a handbook in every Bengali household. People here used to read or listen to Krittibasi Ramayana as a way of life. In regular religious gatherings in different localities of Bengal, Ramayana Gaan was a pious routine performance.

Communists of West Bengal tried to remove this faith. They vituperated Shri Ram through apparent pseudo-intellectual Jack-knifing of the Epic to generate misinformation so that they gradually penetrate the minds of those who would start appreciating Communism and Leftism. Slow brewing of Communism in West Bengal for many decades, made the State vulnerable, as a large portion of common Hindu Bangali lost consciousness about their core religio-cultural identity as ‘Hindu’. This facilitated unhindered illegal infiltration of Muslims from Bangladesh against which significant public awareness and general dissent was absent. Communist Party welcomed infiltrators with open arms as vote bank, disfiguring the demography of West Bengal. As a result of fast-changing demography of the State, Communism, Leftism and Ultra-leftism of West Bengal is standing at the transition line of converging almost entirely into Islamism. This is due to sheer numerical dominance.

After the fall of Communist Government of West Bengal in 2011, the new legislation led by Mamata Banerjee too adopted the same political path of encouraging infiltration. She became even more aggressive to appease and was completely unapologetic to indulge into vote bank politics. As a result, the present legislation of West Bengal is dominantly controlled by Islamists. Such claim may be corroborated with several socio-political incidents of the State. The current form of toxic vituperation of Shree Ram in Class VI Text Book seems to be another step ahead towards Islamisation of Governmental Education in West Bengal.

It needs to be mentioned here that Left Front strategically didn’t admit Lord Ram a Historical Character and hence, never attempted to portray anything about him through History books. Instead, they issued disparaging statements about Shree Ram in the form of informal social propaganda to manipulate the psyche of general people of all age groups. However, the present legislation is much more aggressive and desperate to portray Shree Ram in negative spirit. Hence, unlike Left Front, the current legislation has given historical recognition to Shree Ram to enable the academia to teach misrepresentation of the Epic as ‘History’. They’ve targeted the tender minds of School Children to toxify them against our ethos from the very beginning of their lives. This appears to be “Catch ’em Young” policy to brainwash the future generations of West Bengal against our own culture and beliefs. Such aggressive desperation seems to be reflective of Radical Islamism.

To arrest Islamisation of Education and to stop spoiling of future generations’ psyche and outlook, change of West Bengal’s demography should be halted. For that purpose, politics in West Bengal needs to turn more strategic and goal-oriented than what it is now. The State currently practices vote bank oriented power politics. At the same time, West Bengal ideally and fundamentally needs to follow the path of Dr Syamaprasad Mukherjee, who was the strategic politician to pioneer the creation of West Bengal.

It needs to be perceived that politically motivated distorted lessons about Great Epics imparted in Schools have all potential to radicalize our Children. Can India afford that? It’s easy to realize that if West Bengal is not saved from this danger without much delay, the rest of India too would be vulnerable soon after. After capturing West Bengal, expansionists are likely to target the next adjacent State to fulfil the dream of those who raise slogans of “Bharat tere tukde honge”.