The state secondary education board on Thursday asked all aided and sponsored schools to compulsorily include the state song, “Banglar Mati Banglar Jol”, in the morning assembly for Classes IV to X.
The directive comes at a time when Bengal has witnessed a competitive identity politics.
The Mamata Banerjee government has been trying to champion the Bengali identity at a time when several BJP leaders have made uncharitable remarks about Bengali-speaking people and several BJP-ruled states have branded them Bangladeshis.
The BJP leaders have also mounted a shrill campaign around the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, stoking fears of disenfranchisement among large sections of the Bengali population, unsure about whether they have enough papers to reaffirm their Indianness.
The song was composed by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905 to protest against the partition of the then-undivided Bengal by Lord Curzon.
The order issued by the state secondary education board on Thursday evening, addressed to the heads of institutions, says: “The undersigned... is directed to inform you to take necessary action for regularly singing the state song ‘Banglar Mati Banglar Jol’ in the morning assembly mandatorily”.
A board official said higher secondary schools, too, will come under the order.
The state song has to be sung regardless of the school’s medium of instruction.
On Thursday evening, education minister Bratya Basu posted on X that the decision was taken following the approval of chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
“We firmly believe this will be an alert and active catalyst for the social and communal unity in our state,” he
wrote.
On September 7, 2023, the Bengal Assembly passed a resolution declaring Poila Baisakh as Bangla Diwas (Bengal Day) and Banglar Mati Banglar Jol as the state song.