– Avik Sengupta
ঐ ভাষাতেই প্রথম বোলে,
ডাকনু মায়ে ‘মা, মা’ বলে;
আমি ঐ ভাষাতেই বলবো হরি
সাঙ্গ হলে কাঁদা হাসা।
আ-মরি বাংলা ভাষা
মোদের গরব, মোদের আশা
আ-মরি বাংলা ভাষা।
Linguistic Identity of Bengalis is an important attribute for the existence of this race. Starting from the days Charja Pad, graduating through Chandi Das and finally in 1913 the Nobel Prize of Rabindra Nath Tagore has given Bengalis enormous love and attachment towards their mother tongue. The sweetness of this language is famous across the world, and hence Bengalis are very proud and possessive about their mother tongue.
No wonder, they will be highly protective about their identity as well. 21st February is now a days celebrated as the International Mother Language Day, post the incident of Dhaka, however the sacrifices of 11 Bengali Speaking souls had been sent to oblivion forever by the Govt of India headed by Jawahar Lal Nehru.
Background
The seed of alienation was sowed during the process of Partition itself, which was based on Religious Identity —– the famous Two Nation Theory of Jinnah. Let’s get back to the pre partition days when Moinul Haque Chaudhury in a meeting promised Md. Ali Jinnah that he will serve Assam on a platter and it will become part of Pakistan. However, one politician from Congress Party of Assam, probably the most influential of them, Gopinath Bordoloi opposed the idea and wanted to Assam’s inclusion in India. Though Nehru was quite reluctant and wanted Assam to be given to Pakistan, it was Bordoloi’s insistence that made Assam included in India. However, Shylet went to the Pakistan side. Though the Assamese politicians didn’t want Kachhar as well ,however it remained with Assam .These two districts had majority of Bengali speaking population and were connected more with Bengal and their linguistic dominance made the local Assamese, a bit worried .Gopinath Bordoloi went to become the first Chief Minister of Assam .
Though partitioned, yet the Bengali Hindus couldn’t survive in the nation which was born out of the hatred against Hindus in spite of linguistic similarity with the local Muslim population, they were compelled to leave the newly created East Pakistan and again enter back in India through the nearest international borders .They started to settle down in different parts of Assam and West Bengal .But the tension with the local people of Assam in terms of language, was kept on a suppressed note .
In April 1960, a proposal was introduced in the Assam Provincial Congress Committee to declare Assamese as the only official language of the province. This increased tensions in the Brahmaputra valley. Agitated Assamese mobs attacked the Bengali immigrants. When the violence escalated in July and September, about 50,000 Bengali Hindus fled the Brahmaputra Valley to West Bengal. Another 90,000 fled to the Barak Valley and elsewhere in the northeast. A one-man commission of inquiry was constituted under the chairmanship of Justice Gopal Mehrotra. According to the commission’s report, 4,019 huts and 58 houses in 25 villages of Goreshwar area of Kamrup district were destroyed and attacked; This district was the most affected area of violence. Nine Bengalis were killed and more than a hundred were injured.
On October 10, 1960, the then Chief Minister of Assam, Bimala Prasad Chaliha , proposed recognition of Assamese as the only official language of Assam. North Karimganj MLA Ranendra Mohan Das strongly opposed the proposal. But on October 24, the proposal was passed in the assembly.
The Bhasa Satya Gragha: Movement for protection of the Language
The Kachar Gana Sangram Parishad was formed on 5 February 1961 to protest against the imposition of Assamese on the Bengalis of the Barak Valley. The people Silchar , Karimganj and Hailakandi observed Sankalp Day on April 14 against this injustice of the Assam government.
The council embarked on a one-sided long march on April 24 to raise awareness among the people of Barak. Various long marches touched base with different parts of the Valley and lot of people got aware and felt connected with the cause and huge mass awareness was generated by the volunteers of the cause.
The satyagrahis, who took part in the march, which ended on May 2, toured villages in the valley for about 200 miles. At the end of the march, Rathindranath Sen, the chief of the council, declared that if by April 13, 1961, Bengali is not declared as official language, they will go on a massive strike on May 19.
On 12 May, the Assam Rifles, the Madras Regiment and the Central Reserve Police Force carried out a flag march in Silchar. On 5 May, Assam police arrested three leaders of the movement, Nalinikanta Das, Rathindranath Sen and Bidhubhushan Chowdhury (editor of the weekly Yugshakti).
19th May events
Strikes and picketing began on 19 May in Silchar, Karimganj and Hailakandi. In Karimganj, protesters picketed government offices, railway stations, courts, etc. In Silchar they started Satyagraha at the railway station. The strike was to end at 4 pm after the scheduled train had passed. Not a single ticket for the 5:40 a.m. train was sold. The morning strike was peaceful.
But the situation took a different turn at around 2.30 pm, after a police truck arrested nine Satyagrahis from Katigora and were passing by Tarapur station (now Silchar railway station ). All the picketers protested when they saw them being arrested and taken away. Frightened, the police, including the truck driver, fled with the prisoners. An unidentified man then set the truck on fire, although firefighters rushed to the scene and brought the fire under control.
At around 2:35 p.m., paramilitary forces guarding the station began beating protesters with guns and sticks. Within seven minutes, they fired 18 rounds at the protesters. Twelve people were shot. Nine of them were killed that day; two died later. These 11 souls were the personification of the initial few lines, I have borrowed from a famous poem of Sri Atul Prasad Sen.
The 11 satyagrahis who became the hutatmas for the love of their mother tongue were: Miss Kamala Bhattacharya, Kanai Lal Neogi ,Hitesh Biswas, Chandicharan Sutradhar,Sachindra Pal, Kumud Das,Satyendra Deb, Birendra Sutradhar , Sukomal Purakaystha, Sunil Sarkar and Tarani Debnath. Most of them migrated from the East Pakistan .
Contemporary sources say, the local Bengali speaking Muslims were not part of this movement and in certain cases played active roles to destabilize this movement for the Bengali Language since inception and its implementation throughout the state.
On May 20, the people of Silchar staged a mourning procession with the bodies of the martyrs.
After this incident, the Assam government was forced to declare Bengali as the official language in the Barak Valley.
Bengalis of West Bengal might not even be aware of the great sacrifices made by the people at Assam. Even the so called “Intellectual Bongs“ who sing with passion on 21st February, are blissfully unaware of the heritage of 19th May. Is it an accident or by virtue of a sinister design?
Bengalis have to think through, so the people of India. In a conspiracy to make a greater Bangladesh based on pseudo identity of Linguistic similarity, the Bengalis of India are being fooled by the Islamists.
George Santaya once said ,” Those who do not know history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them” and we are on the verge of repeating them, and that’s why history of 19th May is so very important and should be spread across all the Bengalis who are aligned with the thought of Atul Prasad , those who are proud of their language and love it like Tapas Barman and Rajesh Sarkar, who again took bullets from a so called Bengali Government , on 20th September 2018 at Daribhit, West Bengal.
In fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices and that’s why Bengalis should remember 19th May and be proud of it.
Avik is a HR professional by training. Has worked with National and International Organizations of repute. A seeker of his root and a self taught history buff; Avik wants to be a part of the journey to reclaim what is rightfully ours.