There is outrage in West Bengal after school text books labelled revolutionary freedom fighters as ‘terrorists’. The history textbooks for Class 8 describe the activities of freedom fighters like Khudiram Bose, Jatindranath Mukherjee and Prafulla Chaki as ‘extremism and terrorism’.
Prominent historians have dubbed the move by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education a gross distortion of India’s freedom struggle. Earlier the Trinamool Congress government had decided to scrap chapters on Karl Marx.
“We have this habit of carrying forward the British tradition and it reflects here too,” said historian Irfan Habib.
“Ultimately the government must be held responsible for it as they chose the authors for the books,” said Pabitro Sarkar.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said, “We need to see who has published this book. If it is published by the government, then this is a very serious issue. If they can call Bose a terrorist, they can call Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru terrorists. These are revolutionaries who gave up their lives for our country fighting against the British. You could call them extremists for their time, but they were revolutionaries.”
