‘...It is the Blood of Barkat’

Arun Kumar Sinha

This year in West Bengal there was a discerning lack of enthusiasm in observing Bhasa Divas, 21st February. It was lackluster in spontaneity of public participation. As usual a government holiday was declared and some perfunctory government sponsored programmes were in place. However, the traditional marches around the educational institutes and usual remembrance of the martyrs in every locality by singing the immortal song ‘amar bhaier rakte rangano ekushe February...’, etc. were markedly absent. The apathy and confused public perception at large was glaringly visible a few days back at the 48th International Book Fair, Kolkata. No publisher or bookseller from Bangladesh was permitted to hold stalls, nor were books published in Bangladesh on display. This incident is a shameful exception and will be remembered as a sin of the Bangla-speaking community in West Bengal towards the honour of their mother tongue.

What led the gentlemen Bhadrolok book-loving community in West Bengal to go down to such a sordid state of unwarranted retribution towards their brethren on the other side of the border that they refused to join their brethren in Bangladesh to celebrate Bhasa Divas together this year? After all, it was always recognised with appreciation and acknowledgement in this part of Bengal the contribution of the people of Bangladesh in upholding and protecting the honour of the mother tongue, of Bangla Bhasa. The origin of Bhasa Diwas, 21st February, is the day in 1952 when four students of Dacca University, Abul Barkat, Abdul Jabbar, Rafiquddin Ahmad, and Abdus Salam, fell to police firing in Dacca (Dhaka) in the erstwhile East Pakistan. They were participating in a protest rally near the University campus against declaring Urdu as the only state language of undivided Pakistan. Bangladesh, a Nation of 174 million Bangla-speaking population, proclaimed itself as an independent State, 26 March 1971. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, later assassinated, spoke in Bangla at the UN General Assembly on 25 September 1974 as an independent member among the 139 States of the then United Nations (UN). The contribution of this nation-state to Mother Earth is the universal recognition of the mother tongue, Bangla. The Bhasa Diwas, 21st February, is recognised by the UN since 2002 to be the International Mother Language Day, declared at the initiative of the state of Bangladesh.

All these facts carry no information to the Bhadrolok community. They only swamped into senility by the overruling of the political regimes. They have no response at all to the reprehensible decision of the Publishers and Book Sellers’ Guild, the administrator, or the International Book Fair in Kolkata. Not only had this gentry, the political outfits otherwise vociferous against the Centre and the State governments, completely ignored the banning of the published books from Bangladesh in the Fair.

In reality, these are glaring signs of confusion, of dithering if not downright rejection of the tumult that has occurred in the political landscape of Bangladesh from July last year, culminating in the fleeing of the erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh to India. The political parties in West Bengal and to that extent in India, whose source of information about Bangladesh is the scripts and links provided by the mainstream media, cannot yet come to terms with the ouster of the ruling dispensation in Bangladesh in August 2024. They are yet to realise it was not a coup d’etat nor was it a Machiavellian plot of inciting people against the then government, a pet, well-nurtured belief of the conspiracy theorists. Wisdom can never dawn among the political parties and their followers among the gentry that Bangladesh earned a second Liberation on 5 August 2024 after the historic defeat of the Pakistan Army and surrender at the Ramna race course in Dacca, 16 December 1971. They all along firmly believe that Bangladesh is a binary duel between the two ladies, between ‘secular’ Awami League (Sheikh Hasina) and ‘communal’ BNP (Khaleda Zia), that the population practising Hindu rituals in otherwise communal Bangladesh are safe under Sheikh Hasina, that the more fundamentalist forces got the upper hand under the rule of the interim government, etc. Add to that, the patronising air and display of the might of the big brother, the oft-repeated bashing that Bangladesh would not have been there had the Indian army not dissected the state of Pakistan.

It cannot be denied, rather it must be recognised that West Bengal bore the maximum brunt of the Liberation war for the creation of Bangladesh. The huge migration of population practising Hindu religious beliefs in waves just before the assault of the Pakistani army in East Pakistan continued till the mid-seventies. The refugee population had very few resources to pull on, as it happens every time. Overnight, refugee colonies sprung up here and there, Many refugees were deported to distant Dandyakarnya of Chattisgarh or in Himachal Pradesh, Terai in Uttarakhand, etc. Deprivation and assault over human dignity created a deep scar and animosity among a vast section of the refugee population with Hindu beliefs who always maintained a communal vengeance towards the population of Bangladesh. Notwithstanding the fact there remains quite a substantial population in Bangladesh with Hindu religious beliefs. Moreover, over the past decades there is a continuous uproar over so-called ‘illegal’ migrants of Bangladesh, a pet whipping mascot of the bigots forecasting the doom of the majority population with a Hindu tag in West Bengal as the perception over demography gets changed.

This binary representation of the issues of Bangladesh, coloured by the communal portrayal is so relentless in bombardment that the electoral autocracy and the loot of the finances for the last fifteen years in Bangladesh do not create any flutter among the so-called ‘educated‘ population of West Bengal. They have lost the eyesight to witness the dynamics of the popular upsurge, the meaning of the flooding of population on the streets of Bangladesh on the 5th August 2024, cheering with a single chant ‘Hasinapalaise’ (Hasina has fled). They cannot digest the fact that no political party of Bangladesh or any combination of them could claim the ownership of this huge upheaval of the youth (by the way, Bangladesh now has youth as one-third of its population). The martyrdom of Abu Sayeed in Rangpur on 16 July 2024 evokes no feeling in their mind. Abu Sayeed, the fresh radiant beam of light in winning fear in this subcontinent, was a student activist at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, Bangladesh. Abu Sayeed was a coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination movement at the university. The night before facing bullets of police firing in a completely singular unarmed position Abu remembered his teacher, Professor Samsuzzoha. Like Abu, Samsuzzoha, a young Rajshahi University teacher, had fallen to the police bullets of the then East Pakistan government while trying to protect student protesters in 1969. Abu wrote, “Sir, we desperately need you right now … Your legacy is our inspiration. We are enlightened by your ideals”.

There is a fundamental difference between the Bangla-speaking population of Bangladesh and of West Bengal. While there are several intellectual contributions to the Bhasa from West Bengal, the people of Bangladesh not only produced immortal songs and literature, but they also earned their love for their Bhasa by offering tributes in flowing blood. To coin Pablo Neruda, ‘Come and see the blood in the streets’ of Bangladesh from the time of rule by Pakistan that continued till now. Can people, the Bangla Bhasi community from the west side of the border disown ‘Ekusher Kabita’? Al Mehmud initiated the poem as “February-erekushtarikh/ dupurbelerwakta/ brishti name, brishtikothai? / Barkat-errakta...”. (On the Twenty-first of February, there is rain at noon. Where is the rain? It is the blood of Barkat.)

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Vol 57, No. 39, March 23 - 29, 2025