Bangla Pokkho – because if we don’t stand up for Bengal and Bengalis now, it will be too late
This is 2018. All Bengalis who are citizens of the Indian Union, including those Bengalis who are residents of West Bengal, are facing an unprecedented attack on the federal structure of the Indian Union – the basic treaty between peoples that the Indian Union is based on (even in case when the truth value of the treaty is not worth the paper it is written on).
Unless we unite and push back now, not, “we, the people”, but we, the peoples, are doomed. In short, language-based ethnocide and permanent dhimmification by supremacist forces of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan backed by vegetarian crony capital. Language is fundamental. Its manifestations make us a people. It is to redeem the natural rights of the Bengali people of West Bengal that a group of youths formed Bangla Pokkho in 2017 and within one year it has created a significant ripple, with its youthful support base now spanning all over West Bengal and beyond. It has put forth the rights of Bengalis as its political priority. It is an organization that is unlike any other. It is primarily formed of youths who belong to every hue of political ideology of Bengal from Trinamool to CPI(M) to Congress to far-left and everything in between, except ideologies of religious communalism. It aims to be the non-partisan united front of the Bengali nation in West Bengal.
Since 1947, Bengalis have been deprived of their rights in West Bengal. We face Hindi imperialism in every walk of life in the Bengali linguistic homeland in the Indian Union. We face external assault. Bengalis have been deprived of the rightful ownership of jobs, market and capital in their own homeland by anti-Bengal forces sponsored by Delhi. Bengalis are facing a huge demographic assault in West Bengal with the percentage of Bengalis in West Bengal decreasing by a whopping 5% in the 2001-2011 period. A resistance was in the offing. No political party truly represents these aspirations at the moment. Thus Bangla Pokkho was formed to mobilize Bengalis for their rights and also to lobby non-communal parties of Bengal to act to ensure the rights of Bengalis. We stand for gaining rights for Bengalis and West Bengal based on the harsh reality of assault and injustice that everyone knows but few articulated in a coherent way with a practical political programme. We aim to articulate that unsaid injustice and march forward to establish justice.
Bangla Pokkho does not believe in mere symbolism. With its battle cry of “Joy Bangla”, it has taken up issue after issue that everybody knew but no one mustered the courage to act upon. Bangla Pokkho is only answerable to the Bengali people and the Constitution and to no one else. It is Bangla Pokkho, whose movement against absence of Bangla in Kolkata metro smart card made the Union Rail Ministry to include Bangla in new smart cards.
It has protested the distorted Bangla in new currency notes. It has protested illegal racist job advertisement from companies operating in Bengal under vegetarian non-Bengali ownership that explicitly said that Bengalis will not be recruited for their job positions in West Bengal. It has protested the observance of Hindi Day in Jadavpur University. It has protested the harassment meted out by Quest Mall authorities to Bengali people wearing lungi and dhuti. It has protested against central GST on Bangla films. It has protested the killing of our Bengali brother Afrajul in Rajasthan.
It has protested the distortion of Robindronath’s “Jono Gono Mono” song through naked “Jana-Gana-Mana” Hindification which forces Bengalis to stand up to a distortion of this immortal creation of our poet laureate. It has protested the deletion of Bangla and imposition of Hindi in NHAI signage in highways of West Bengal. It has protested the distortion of Bangla by Airtel. It has protested the imposition of NEET that seeks to destroy West Bengal state board and the future of West Bengal state board students by giving preferential treatment of CBSE and non-Bengali medium students. And all this has happened in a period of about one year.
And all these protests have happened on the streets in front of the Bengali people on the holy soil of Mother Bengal. It has also developed links with fraternal Bengali organizations in Asom. Bangla Pokkho now has several district units and also a Probashi (non-resident) unit. It has also developed fraternal ties with linguistic rights organizations in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab. Its members have been invited to speak on behalf of the Bengali people in Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Washington DC.
On the first day of the Bengali New Year 1425, Bangla Pokkho issued its 30 demands that deal with rights of Bengalis in West Bengal and the rights of West Bengal in the Indian Union. Its final aim is to create a truly federal relationship between West Bengal and the Centre so that the latter has jurisdiction over External Defence, External Affairs, Currency, Railways and nothing else. Under the ideology of Anglo-Hindi imperialism, all assertions of homeland rights are dubbed as chauvinism. This is not a chauvinist issue. Far from it. It is an economic and cultural survival issue. It is our issue. It is an issue of federalism. It is an issue of Delhi’s quasi imperial power versus our power.
Federalism has been made into a farce by successive ‘national’ party-led governments at the Centre. Proud peoples of various states are reduced into vassals of the Union government. The Centre can do this because of its discretionary powers in terms of allocation through extra-ordinary and special grants, finance commission, various ‘national policy’ parameter setting in Concurrent and State subjects. The Centre carries off most of the revenue produced inside a state. That’s the source of the Centre’s power and its discretionary abuse.
Centralization of power through constitutional amendments, Hindi imposition, NEET, IPL-Bollywood-CBSE, Finance Commission, NCR promotion, GST, Union ownership of mines and minerals are all disrespectful towards the aspirations of the diverse peoples of the Indian Union. Federalism is the way. Decentralization is the way. Let’s unite against attempts to homogenize Bengalis, Tamils and Haryanvis into deracinated beings for the benefit of NCR and “Indian-ness”. Bangla Pokkho stands for a true federal democratic Union of India.
Many is beautiful. True Federalism is possible. Brotherhood among the various linguistic nationalities of the Indian Union based on co-operation and not imposition or encroachment is possible. Equality and dignity are pre-conditions to Unity and Diversity. Unity in Diversity is our ideology and we seek to defend the Constitution of India by fighting to defend the federal structure. We are warriors for peace. We dream of a future of love and dignity built upon the inalienable rights of Bengalis in West Bengal and that of West Bengal in the Indian Union. That is the future that Bangla Pokkho struggles for. Bangla Pokkho seeks revenge and reparation for injustices past and present, not through retribution but through taking back what rightfully belongs to us and asserting our natural rights as a linguistic nationality which is an inalienable constituent nationality of the Indian Union, namely the Bengali nationality. As Bobby Sands had said, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children”.
[The views expressed belong solely to the author, and may not reflect the opinions of the editorial team.]