To
Bangla or not: Let Bengalis have their last word on their fate
It would be prudent for national
parties to see its smooth passage,
rather than creating a ruckus over a non-issue.
POLITICS | 5-minute read | 31-8-2016
COLONEL
R HARIHARAN @colhari2
Well, to be more accurate it was not Rabindra Sangeet -his music - but the poem "Amar sonar Bangla" lauds the land and became the national anthem of the other Bangla - Bangladesh.
Normally,
the change of name of a state should be a non-issue to national parties after
the state had opted for it. This is not the first time an Indian state has decided
to rename itself. Uttaranchal, which was created out of Uttar Pradesh on November
9, 2000, was renamed Uttarakhand on January 1, 2007 to reinforce its identity
as a state and not a region. After Telengana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh,
the parent state brushed aside suggestions to change its name as "Seema
Andhra" and retained its name.
But the
change of name can also be a tricky exercise. The Congress party which was
ruling the Madras State opposed the popular demand for renaming the state as Tamil
Nadu as everyone called it and the party's state unit was known Tamil Nadu
Congress. It paid a heavy price and lost the state election after the DMK party
used the issue as one more foil to flaunt its Dravidian credentials and love of
Tamil; the Congress party has not been able to return to power in the state since
then.
If we
go by the Tamil Nadu experience, Ms Banerjee may well be correct in saying
"the CPI (M) and Congress have made a historic blunder by opposing the
change in name". In fact, the CPI (M)'s opposition is rather curious as it
had proposed it when it was in power! Is the volte face because the TMC stole
the thunder from the party in the name game?
Not
only the Congress and the CPI (M) but the state BJP also opposes the change,
though cadres and leaders of all political parties use only as Bangla (or Bango
in yet another variation). Their rationale for opposing is different. In fact,
the state BJP president Dilip Ghosh is said to have asked the Centre not to
table the resolution for change of name "as it would erase the memories of
Partition."
He has
a point because no Bengali can forget the trauma Bengal had suffered twice due
to partition of the state – first in 1905, during the British colonial rule and
later in 1947, at the time of independence.
Despite
sharing the rich cultural heritage of Bengali language and social and cultural
history, the western and eastern halves suffered from class, caste and
religious differences. The Hindus majority dominated the industrialized western
half while the poor, landless Muslim majority lived in the agrarian East. While
the Western half supplied the English speaking babus to the British, the
riverine culture of east produced seafarers, rice farmers and Hilsa fish that
sustains the life of Bengalis everywhere.
The Partition
of Bengal in 1947 resulted in the creation of East Pakistan was preceded by the
great Calcutta killings of August 16,
1946 after the Muslim League gave a call for direct action resulting in the
loss of about 5000 lives. The violent birth of East Pakistan a year later left
a bloody trail of riots and further killings both in the West and East. The
demography of both halves changed dramatically due to the tectonic effects of Partition.
Over 25 lakh Hindus fled from the newly
created East Pakistan over a period of four years from 1947, reducing Hindus
there from a powerful community to a helpless minority, smarting in the
aftershocks of Partition to this day.
There
was a bit of a political drama before Bengalis were reconciled to partition in
1947. Three months before partition came into effect, Bengal provincial Muslim
League leader Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy came up with the idea of not accepting
partition of the province but creating an independent Bengal that would join neither
India nor Pakistan, as he felt the comparatively less developed Muslim
dominated agrarian eastern half would not be economically viable on its own. He
managed to muster the support of Sarat Chandra Bose, Netaji Subash Chandra
Bose’s brother and a Congress leader in his own right, for his proposal. After
detailed discussions to give form to the proposal for unified Bengal, the two
leaders signed an agreement and published the plan on May 27, 1947.
Though
Suhrawardy could convince Mohammed Ali Jinnah about the validity of his
proposal for a unified Bengal and gain his tacit approval, the Muslim League
did not fall in line. It negated the League’s the two-nation theory that formed
basis for the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland. Even within the Bengal
provincial Muslim League, the opinion was divided.
The
Congress party out rightly rejected the proposal as it suspected Suhrawardy’s
intentions. This was not surprising because Suhrawardy’s credibility among the
population was eroded as many felt he had planned the August 1946 Calcutta
killings. The idea of a unified Bengal did not find much support and died a
natural death after Bose developed differences over Suhrawardy’s insistence that
there be separate electorates for Muslims and non-Muslims.
Though
the idea of independent Bengal was short-lived, it showed the strength of
Bengali nationalism which could overcome Hindu-Muslim antipathy.
The
bloody aftermath of Partition subsumed the strength of Bengali identity for
nearly two-and-a-half decades. However, East Pakistanis, treated as the poor
cousins of the Punjabi-dominated West Pakistan, reasserted their Bengali
identity to create Bangladesh in 1971, with India providing the military
muscle.
The change
of name for West Bengal would come into force only after the parliament
approves the resolution for change with two thirds majority. It would be
prudent for national parties including the BJP and the Congress party to see
its smooth passage in parliament rather than creating a ruckus over non issue.
After
all what is in a name? Whether the rest of India accepts it or not, for every
Bengali, their state would only be Bangla or Bango. And they would continue to
relish the illich machcher jhol (Hilsa fish curry) cooked in distinct
East Bengali style with Hilsa smuggled from Bangladesh.
Courtesy: India
Today opinion portal DailyO.in
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