West Bengal textbooks replaces word ‘Ram’ with ‘Rang’ to describe rainbow in Bengali

The right-winged organisations in the state are also considering this move by the West Bengal Council for Higher Education as an attempt to put the rising influence of the BJP under control in the state.

By: News Desk |
January 13, 2017 2:42 pm

Leaving behind the old ways of learning, the Bengali learning students in West Bengal from now on will be calling the rainbow rangdhenu instead of ramdhenu. This all happened after the textbooks in West Bengal replaced the word ‘Ram’ with ‘Rang’ to describe a rainbow in Bengali.

The literal meaning of ‘Ramdhenu’ is Lord Ram’s Bow. Many people in the state are liking this amendment of word against BJP’s rise in Bengal. The right-winged organisations in the state are also considering this move by the West Bengal Council for Higher Education as an attempt to put the rising influence of the BJP under control in the state.

According to report published in DNA, this change of word has been justified by the WB education council by terming this episode as a ‘routine update’ and not an attempt to hurt anyone’s political or religious sentiments. “This change is just a routine update and should not be seen as anything else,” said an official from the council.

The leaders of the right-wing faction have asserted that not just one word have been changed but a chapter in standard VII’s Environment and Science textbook has mentioned one of the colours of rainbow as ‘Aasmani’ instead of the Bengali word ‘Akaashi’.

Earlier, Bangladesh had replaced the word, ‘Ramdhenu’ with ‘Rangdhenu’ from their textbooks and now the West Bengal education department has followed the same procedure.