Tripura to add CM's articles on state's last ruler to school books

Agartala, October 18

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The Tripura government will include some articles from the book written by Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb about the last princely ruler Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur in the school curriculum, officials said on Monday.

“The department has decided to add some of the pieces from the Chief Minister’s book on the erstwhile ruler Bir Bikram, one of the architects of modern Tripura, in the school curriculum,” an Education Department official, who did not want to be identified, told IANS.

On the decision, historian and writer Pannalal Roy said, “At the end of the 1,355-year-rule by 184 rulers, on October 15, 1949, the erstwhile princely state of Tripura came under the control of the Indian government after a merger agreement was signed between Regent Maharani Kanchan Prabha Devi and the Indian Governor General. Rabindranath Tagore had visited and stayed in Agartala more than seven times between 1899 and 1927 and the Nobel laureate was supported by the Tripura’s rulers in numerous ways.” Roy, who wrote his first book on Maharaja Bir Bikram in 2005, said that the young generation of Tripura and most people in India are not aware of “the contributions and performance of the former Tripura royal dynasty”. IANS