A great section of Bengal civil society is worried about the deletion of Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra’s works from the Bangladesh school syllabus, thanks to intense pressure from some fundamentalist forces active in that side of the border.

With Tagore works getting ‘alt-control-deleted’ from school syllabi Bengali writers like Sirshendu Mukherjee have expressed their displeasure

saying, “religious considerations should not remote-control education.”

Famous poet from Kolkata Srijata was “dismayed at the way some poems were removed from the syllabus that were once recited with pride” whenever he went to that country. “A Government can introduce changes in syllabus but it is unfortunate if the step is taken to appease fundamentalist forces.”

A senior professor at prestigious Jadavpur University said “it is the duty of a secular Government to protect secular ideas and prevent reactionary forces from striking root. One hopes Bangladesh will consider the concerns raised by the civil society in both the countries.”

Another professor of Presidency University said “it is not enough to politically confront reactionary forces but to counter them ideologically and culturally is also important. literary works that teach us to dream of a purely liberated society is one way to promote such culture. One is sure people of Bangladesh will never succumb to pressure from such fundamentalist forces.”

Among the noted Tagore poems taken off the school syllabus is: “Aaji Bangladesher Hriday Hote” which was included in Class VI syllabus. However Tagore’s “Sonar Tori” have been retained in the syllabus.

Besides other works deleted from the syllabus are Sarat Chandra’s “lalu,” Sanjeev Chattopadhyay’s “Palamau,” S. Wajed Ali’s “Ranchi Bhraman,” Uepndra Kishore Roychowdhury’s “Cheleder Ramayan,” Sunil Gangopadhyay’s “Sankota Dulche.”