Kolkata, Jun 10
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari allocated the portfolios, where though he has retained some of the key departments, but assigned Jagannath Chattopadhaya and Dipak Burman – two RSS veterans in the cabinet, the key responsibility of education, strongly indicating significant changes in the state's educational framework.
Jagannath Chattopadhyay has been appointed Minister for Higher Education, while Deepak Barman will oversee the School Education Department.
Their appointments have sparked political discussions, with observers noting the RSS background of both ministers at a time when debates over education policy and curriculum reforms have intensified.
The allocation of two cabinet ministers comes just a few days after state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya alleged that school textbooks were promoting a distorted version of Indian history while neglecting the country's glorious past.
He argued for the inclusion of what he described as accurate historical narratives and stressed the need for younger generations to learn about India's heritage.
Referring to figures such as grammarian Panini and poet Kalidasa, Bhattacharya emphasised the importance of nationalism and asserted that Bengalis are Indians first and Bengalis thereafter.
Similar views have been expressed on multiple occasions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders, who have spoken about correcting historical distortions, promoting nationalism, highlighting the achievements of ancient India, Vedic science and culture, and celebrating the legacy of the freedom movement.
Education has been one of the controversial departments in recent times, not only because of allegations of large-scale recruitment irregularities during the previous Trinamool Congress regime, but also because of allegations of Left leniency in the syllabus for the last 50 years.
During the Left Front era, the department was divided, reportedly due to pressure from coalition partners. The arrangement continued during the initial years of the Mamata Banerjee government before the department was later unified.
Political observers believe that, although there were administrative changes in the department, ideally, the syllabus and the teaching mechanism didn’t move too much from the left modelled design.
In this context, many political observers believe that the decision to hand over the two education portfolios to Jagannath Chattopadhyay and Deepak Barman is a significant move by the new administration.
Soon after taking charge, Jagannath Chattopadhyay visited Bikash Bhavan and held discussions with senior officials. Addressing reporters later, he criticised the recent controversy surrounding Surendranath College, where photographs allegedly showing a bedroom-like setup on campus surfaced publicly.
"Instead of discussions about libraries, photographs of bedrooms in colleges are coming to light. That itself reflects the poor state of education," the minister said.
"We will work as a team. Our goal is to restore Bengal's prominence in higher education," he said.
Chattopadhyay also promised regular recruitment examinations, including SSC, CSC, and PSC, every year. He pledged that appointments would be made through a transparent and corruption-free process to prevent a repeat of the controversies that marked the previous administration.
The minister further vowed to expose corruption within the education sector and expressed his ambition to make Bengal's education system the best in the country. Ending on an emphatic note, he remarked, "Just wait and watch what happens next."
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