Nepali Finally Included as an “Optional Subject” in WBCS Mains Exams

Nepali has been finally included as an Optional Subject in WBCS Mains Exams.

Earlier, students who had Physics as their elective, honours or Masters/PhD could take Physics as their optional subject, those with Economics could take economics, those with Maths could take Maths, those with Bangla could take Bangla or Hindi or Santhali or Urdu etc. But students who studied Nepali in their undergraduate or masters/PhD level did not have this option. They were forced to take other subjects.

With the inclusion of Nepali as an optional subject, this historic wrong has been finally corrected. Now students who have Nepali as a subject in undergraduate and above have to option to choose Nepali as their main subjects in the WBCS Mains exams.

The credit for this historic change goes to the Hill Students’ Association, North Bengal University who lead on this issue from the front this year, and created massive pressure on the West Bengal government and all political parties to act.

It may be recalled that the inclusion of Nepali as one of the Optional Subjects in the main exams had not been done despite Nepali being an Official Language in West Bengal since 1961, and also one of the National Languages of India recognised in the VIIth Schedule of the Constitution of India since 1992.

In 2015, the then GJM Kurseong MLA Dr. Rohit Sharma had taken up this issue, while he had been assured of change it wasn’t done. Later Darjeeling MP Raju Bista too has taken up this issue at various levels since 2021. This year, along with Raju Bista, GTA Chief Anit Thapa and IGJF Chief Ajoy Edwards too had spoken in favour of inclusion of Nepali as an Optional Subject in WBCS. Recently, Kalchini MLA Bishal Lama too had demanded the inclusion of Nepali as an Optional Subject in the WB Legislative Assembly.

We thank and congratulate all those who have stood in unity with the Hill Students’ Association, in their just demand for inclusion.

This incident also shows that the youths are the heralders of change and in unity lies our strength.