About the Department of History

The Department of History at Dumkal College, Murshidabad, is a vibrant academic department, working to promote and teach the subject of History to its students with great care and dedication since the foundation of the college in the year,1999. The Department of History began its journey as a small department with only B.A. General course in History. The Honours course in History was introduced from 2003-2004 academic session, and since then, for the last 25 years of existence, the department has seen many changes and is now one of the major departments of the college in terms of students’ strength and university results

The Department offers both honours and general course for ongoing CBCS syllabus (introduced by the parent university from 2018-2019 session) and in the recent years, following directions from the UGC and The University of Kalyani from 2023-2024 session, we have successfully introduced History Major and History Minor as per NEP-2020. The curriculum spans ancient, medieval, and modern periods of Indian and world history. The present NEP 2020 syllabus focus on a range of themes, including historiography, social and cultural history, political and economic history, historical methodologies and theories, women’s history- many of these with cross cutting issues like human values, environmental sustainability and gender issues.

Presently, the Department of History is served by 1 Associate Professor, 1 Assistant Professor, and 3 State Aided College Teachers (SACT). The teachers of the Department regularly participate in seminars and conferences at the national and international levels and endeavour to share their understanding and views with the students. The teachers also devote themselves to nurture the potentialities of the students. The cordial teacher-student relationship has made our endeavour successful.

Through its academic programmes, organising departmental seminars with invited lectures, organising Awareness Programmes on different socially relevant issues, the Department of History aims to promote critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and historical awareness among students, and to make them socially responsible citizens.

The proportion of female students is very high in our department. Our students mostly come from the local area and many of them come from the economically weaker section. Keeping this in mind, we try to make the subject interesting for them, so that they can think about joining teaching profession in future. We are helping our students to cope up to the new system (NEP-2020) so that they excel in the final examinations. We are stressing on the Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC) papers especially for vocational purposes to assist the students to explore the job market.

The department is dedicated to the study and exploration of the past. As the college is located in the culturally rich and historically significant district of Murshidabad in the state of West Bengal, the department draws inspiration from the region's complex and fascinating heritage. Since its inception, the department has been committed to fostering among its students a deep understanding of historical events, processes, and cultural traditions, and their continued impact on contemporary society.

Mission

• Mould the students as ideal Citizens with deep knowledge of History and love for heritage which professes unity in diversity of our country.
• Encouraging the students to possess an exploring and critical bent of mind to analyse and organize facts.
• Make students familiar with the historically important places and their significance.
• Guide the students eligible for jobs in educational institutions, Civil Services, Defence Services etc.

Vision

• To develop a proper and objective understanding of the past and to encourage them to study deep about past using the particular skills of historical thinking.
• Inculcate true social values among the present generation of students.
• To create an awareness among the students about the past, to connect them to the roots of human civilization.
• To enable students of History to gain a better understanding of the contemporary world and make connection to the future.
• To make them responsible citizens
• To infuse positivism and values in students and enlighten them about the History of our Nation and the World,
• To enable them to possess proper perspective of the glorious past so that they could resolve the issues of the present and future with confidence

Infrastructure

• Seminar Library
• Lockers for individual teachers
• Almirah for storage of departmental documents

Best Practices

• Regular Subject Discussion
• Individual Mentoring
• Regular Subject Discussion
• Review Assignments
• Use of power point presentation for ease of learning
• Seminars and Awareness Programmes