A mistake in a history question paper at the state-run Vidyasagar University, in which certain freedom fighters of the early 1930s were described as terrorists — a label from the British Raj regarding sections of India’s freedom movement that believed in armed revolution — caused a churn in the Bengal teacup on Thursday.
Question 12 of the sixth semester history exam asked (in Bengali): “Name three district magistrates of Midnapore who were killed by terrorists?”
Since the question was brought to light late on Wednesday, there has been unequivocal condemnation and outrage from various quarters, especially in academia and politics. The BJP has complained about the question via email to chief minister Mamata Banerjee and education minister Bratya Basu and lashed out at the Trinamool Congress. The Congress and the CPM, while sternly critical of the gaffe, attacked the BJP as well.
Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya said no better was to be expected of Mamata’s party, as it was born in the Congress’s womb.
“The Congress has misled, misinformed, and misguided generations to learn falsified, misinterpreted history to please their coloniser masters, which we stand firmly against. The Congress used to infamously call revolutionaries 'misguided patriots'. The Congress betrayed the revolutionaries and the revolution, including the countless from Bengal,” said the Rajya Sabha member.
“Mamata Banerjee’s party is Congress-born and carries that legacy… so this is natural to them,” he added.
The magistrates in question, historians pointed out, were James Peddie, Robert Douglas, and Bernard Berge, all of whom were buried at St John’s Church in Midnapore.
Peddie adopted oppressive measures to curb revolutionary influence. Bimal Dasgupta and Jyotijeevan Ghosh killed him on April 7, 1931.
Ghosh was eventually arrested and remained in jail until 1946, while Dasgupta was sent to the Cellular Jail for a 10-year sentence. Ghosh later lived as a monk and disappeared from his home in 1964. Dasgupta died at Midnapore in 2000, at 89.
Robert Douglas surpassed Peddie’s brutality. Pradyut Bhattacharya and Prabhangshu Shekhar Pal killed him on April 30, 1932.
Bhattacharya was arrested later and executed on January 12, 1933. Pal was arrested and served a six-year prison term, dying in 2007, at the age of 94.
Bernard E.J. Berge courageously succeeded Peddy and Douglas when no ICS officer wanted to be posted in Midnapore. After surviving multiple attempts on his life, Berge was killed by Brajo Kishore Chakraborty, Ram Krishna Roy, Nirmal Jeevan Ghosh, Mrigen Dutta, and Anathbandhu Panja — all aged between 17 and 22 — on September 2, 1933.
Panja died in a gunfight at the spot. Dutta succumbed to his injuries the following day, while Chakraborty, Roy, and Ghosh were apprehended and executed on October 25-26, 1934. Additionally, Sukumar Sengupta, Nandadulal Singh, Shanti Gopal Sen, and Kamakhya Charan Ghosh received life imprisonment sentences.
All the armed revolutionaries were associated with the Bengal Volunteers, founded by Hemchandra Ghosh and mentored by the likes of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Their ideological fire was fuelled at the time by the impact of Japan defeating Russia in 1905, Ireland’s freedom struggle, and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The 1931-33 assassinations were mainly retaliatory attacks for the martyrdom of Benoy Basu, Badal Gupta, and Dinesh Gupta, who killed inspector-general (prisons) Colonel N.S. Simpson in the balconies of Writers’ Buildings on December 8, 1930.
Ranajit Dasgupta — son of Bimal Dasgupta — wondered how such a blunder could take place in a state-run varsity.
“How did this glaring error get past the basic checks? I fail to understand. That too at a university named after Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar…. This is outrageous,” he said.
Academic Pabitra Sarkar said: “Most unfortunate, most astonishing.”
“Whoever made the question paper must answer to the vice-chancellor, and they need to explain themselves to us all…. Those responsible ought to be ashamed of themselves,” he added.
Sources in the ruling dispensation said Mamata was “most displeased” with the avoidable embarrassment, and had instructed education minister Basu to take those responsible to task.
“This gives the BJP an opportunity, as she has been fiercely critical of attempts by the saffron ecosystem to have Indian history rewritten,” said a Trinamool leader.
Mamata frequently condemns saffron attempts, for instance, to project the whole of Islamic rule in south Asia as foreign colonisation and retrogressive, and to lionise Hindu kings such as Prithviraj Chauhan and Rana Pratap who fought Muslim invaders or rulers, vilify or demonise Muslim monarchs like Siraj ud-Daulah and Tipu Sultan, who actually died fighting the British coloniser, and extol ancient Indian (Hindu) knowledge and wisdom.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress said there had been an alarming effort, overall, to teach the next generations incorrect history.
“That is being done with various motives. This has to stop,” said the Congress Working Committee member.
“The Congress led the freedom movement from the front, the BJP’s ancestors were nowhere to be found in the epic struggle. They need not lecture anybody on our Independence or the movement,” he added.
CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty virtually echoed him.
Calls and text messages to the education minister did not yield any response, but sources said he has sought a detailed report at once on the matter.
Vidyasagar University vice-chancellor Dipak Kar held a news conference to apologise for the gaffe.
“The mistake was unintentional. When the mistake came to our notice, we could not do anything. The question paper was distributed by then. We apologise for the mistake. It is being investigated. The two who were responsible for setting the questions have been removed,” he said.
Trinamool said what happened was totally unwarranted and should never have taken place, but underscored that it was the liability of the individuals directly responsible for it.
“Who made the question paper? Who approved it? It is entirely a matter related to a handful of individuals responsible for this. The question paper didn’t go out from the education department or from Nabanna. Those individuals are entirely, solely responsible,” said Trinamool state general secretary Kunal Ghosh.
"The word terrorism does create confusion given its present context. Terrorism is also a political strategy.... It is a ploy to evoke fear and seize political demands. In the revolutionary tradition of the freedom struggle, terror was used as a strategy. Revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh did admit its use in their writings... Just saying terrorism creates a misconception but it should not be construed as derogatory when referring to freedom fighters. It should not be equated with the kind of communal terrorism we see today. Revolutionary terrorism is a better usage...Even in the French Revolution, a stage is referred to as the Reign of Terror," said historian Kanad Sinha.
Political watchers said the matter was most likely a case of oversight without mischief or malice, but mountains would be made of molehills in the perennially turbulent seas of Bengal politics, especially with months remaining for the Assembly elections.
“The slogan ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ is an indubitable truth. The British colonisers used to view our freedom fighters as terrorists. This is a matter of perspective. But after 78 years of Independence, those people should not have been labelled as terrorists, indeed,” said political scientist Subhamoy Maitra.
“But the latest controversy is a non-issue, really... a simple apology should have sufficed. The general literary standards, the standards of education in Bengal, have declined drastically, which is why these things now take place,” he added. “This Trinamool versus BJP, Bengali versus non-Bengali, insider versus outsider brouhaha is rather shallow and largely pointless.”