Anti-Hindi protests pick up steam in Bengal
KOLKATA: BANGLA POKKHO, WHICH HAS OPENED UNITS IN 10 OF THE STATE’S 23 DISTRICTS IN MONTHS, HAS ALREADY FORCED GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND ORGANISATIONS TO TAKE UP BENGALI
A Bengali rights group against “Hindi imperialism” is fast gaining influence in West Bengal and has had some early success in furthering its ideology.
The group, Bangla Pokkho, draws inspiration from the antiUrdu movement in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the late 1960s and early 1970s and the antiHindimovementsin TamilNadu and Karnataka.
“We are not against any language. We are against the Union government’s ploy to impose Hindi upon non-Hindi speaking people,” Garga Chatterjee, who is spearheading the movement, said. Chatterjee is an assistant professor at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata and leads its Ghilu (brain) Lab.
The group is strongly opposed to the line ‘Hindi hain hum, watan hain Hindustan hamara’ from the song Sare Jahan Se Achha. Its activists have torn stickers in railways coaches with the line printed on them.
“We are not Hindi. We are Bengali. Our nation is called India and Bharat. Hindustan is not written anywhere in the Constitution. Hindustan refers to north India,” Chatterjee, a vocal supporter of the ruling Trinamool Congress, said.
The group took its first steps in the immediate aftermath of the saffron camp’s unprecedented Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti celebration in 2017 when many processions with weapons were taken out in West Bengal.
“The BJP’s rise at the Centre and in West Bengal had a direct impact on our movement. The saffron camp’s slogan of ‘HindiHindu-Hindustan’ poses the biggest threat for Bengal,” Anirban Banerjee, an active member of the group, said.
Bangla Pokkho, which has opened units in 10 of the state’s 23 districts over the past couple of months, has already forced government departments and organisations to take up Bengali or support the language.
Kolkata Metro railways authorities introduced Bengali in smart cards in April after protests by the group’s members, who were also supported by Independent Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee.
Soon after, the group bombarded Kolkata Police with emails and social media messages, protesting the department’s decision of putting up signboards in Urdu and Hindi in non-Bengali speaking areas. It said Bengali cannot be excluded from any state government notice or campaign. The police wrote back saying Bengali will be their principal language of communication.
The latest success came in June, when the Union ministry of human resource developmentrun Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), situated in Nadia district, withdrew its notification that said knowledge of Hindi was mandatory for applying for teaching and non-teaching positions after activists launched a cyber campaign and agitated outside the office. “Imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states has a clear economic agenda – it is to ensure Hindi speaking people get an advantage in national level exams and government jobs,” said Bangla Pokkho activist Rehan Amin.
“If Bengali is not used in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, why should Hindi and Urdu be used in Bengal?” Amin, a resident of Howrah who runs a coaching centre, asked.
This is not the first Bengali rights movement in the state.
The Amra Bangalee movement by the Ananda Marg group gained some influence during the 1980s and regained its hold in north Bengal in 2008 when the Gorkhaland movement resumed.
In early 2000, poet-novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay led a movement for making Bengali mandatory on signboards of every business establishment in Bengal.
Bangla Pokkho’s movement, however, is different in nature.
The group has already opened a science wing to popularise science writing in Bengali and a legal wing is in the making. They are also planning a “business/ entrepreneurship wing” to teach Bengali speaking youth the intrigues of winning tenders.