Today is the 63rd Independence Day of India. On this day, exactly 62 years ago, India snatched independence from the imperialist and fascist British regime. The British hegemony came to an end with Jawaharlal Nehru taking over the helms as the first Prime Minister of liberated India. After ruling the Indian sub-continent for over 200 years, the English rulers left India amidst tremendous confusion. The rest as they say is history with India going from strength to strength over the next 62 years. Today, India is an economic superpower with the GDP growth rate next only to China, another oriental power hub in the making. Thus Independence Day is a great event to celebrate for most of the Indians and they do that with much fanfare and jubilation.
But certain uncomfortable questions do raise their ugly heads in the midst of this frenzied merriment. In order to appreciate the root of these questions, let us go back in history and analyze the price that India and a section of the Indian diaspora had to pay to gain this so-called Independence. India was divided into two parts, the predominantly Hindu India and the declared Muslim Pakistan. East Bengal which was all this while an integral part of India and a region which produced the maximum number of martyrs who laid down their lives at the altar of Indian Freedom Movement, became a part of Pakistan and came to be known as East Pakistan. Consequently, a large number of Hindus were evicted like animals. In the process, women were raped, men were killed, all the properties snatched from these helpless families and these families were driven like wild hogs from their own homeland. Not knowing what to do, some of these families caught the jam-packed trains and landed in Sealdah station in Kolkata which became their home for a fairly long time only to eventually land up in refugee colonies and be looked down upon by the local population. A large section of these evicted families actually gave in to the promises of land and livelihood given by the just sworn in Indian government and boarded the ships to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, then a dreaded place because of snakes and poisonous insects only to see that even the basic life supporting systems were not installed there. Fifty percent of these people died due to a myriad number of reasons ranging from snake bites to drinking poisonous water because of the paucity of the universal medium. The ones who were lucky or unlucky enough to survive lived the lives of primitive human beings. Even today, one of the major languages of Andaman and Nicobar Islands is Bengali and two of the MPs elected from that region had been from that community. I am sure; everyone has heard the name of both Monoranjan Bhakta and Bishnupada Roy.
Anyway, let us go back to the original discussion. Some of the evicted families, residing particularly in the Northern block of Sylhet (Srihatta) and Kumilla in East Pakistan crossed over to Assam and Tripura for getting refuge. Thus, a significant demographic invasion took place and the population structure of both Assam and Tripura went for a toss. In fact, Tripura became a Bengali dominated state and Bengali was inducted as the co-state language along with the indigenous Kokborok. In Assam, the Barak Valley in the southern part of the state became a Bengali hub because of the rampaging refugees. Obviously, the indigenous Assamese populace felt threatened by the burgeoning number of Bengalis and thus started the Assam movement in the mid-seventies which saw the cold-blooded murder of many Bengalis throughout the state. Even people who came in before 1971 were branded as foreigners and killed. Thus a group of people who shed the maximum amount of blood for the Freedom Movement of the country became the obvious victims of Independence. Today, being a member of that community, I seriously question Indian Independence and its aftermath. We are living sans identity. Neither the people from West Bengal consider us as their brethren because we are from East Bengal, nor the people of Assam and Tripura take us as their own because they see us as intruders. Just because of some treaties which were signed in New Delhi by the political bigwigs back then, we lost our land, identity and dignity for ever. Even after this, if I celebrate Independence Day, I would be a traitor to my community. For me and lot of us from our community, it is a black day.
But certain uncomfortable questions do raise their ugly heads in the midst of this frenzied merriment. In order to appreciate the root of these questions, let us go back in history and analyze the price that India and a section of the Indian diaspora had to pay to gain this so-called Independence. India was divided into two parts, the predominantly Hindu India and the declared Muslim Pakistan. East Bengal which was all this while an integral part of India and a region which produced the maximum number of martyrs who laid down their lives at the altar of Indian Freedom Movement, became a part of Pakistan and came to be known as East Pakistan. Consequently, a large number of Hindus were evicted like animals. In the process, women were raped, men were killed, all the properties snatched from these helpless families and these families were driven like wild hogs from their own homeland. Not knowing what to do, some of these families caught the jam-packed trains and landed in Sealdah station in Kolkata which became their home for a fairly long time only to eventually land up in refugee colonies and be looked down upon by the local population. A large section of these evicted families actually gave in to the promises of land and livelihood given by the just sworn in Indian government and boarded the ships to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, then a dreaded place because of snakes and poisonous insects only to see that even the basic life supporting systems were not installed there. Fifty percent of these people died due to a myriad number of reasons ranging from snake bites to drinking poisonous water because of the paucity of the universal medium. The ones who were lucky or unlucky enough to survive lived the lives of primitive human beings. Even today, one of the major languages of Andaman and Nicobar Islands is Bengali and two of the MPs elected from that region had been from that community. I am sure; everyone has heard the name of both Monoranjan Bhakta and Bishnupada Roy.
Anyway, let us go back to the original discussion. Some of the evicted families, residing particularly in the Northern block of Sylhet (Srihatta) and Kumilla in East Pakistan crossed over to Assam and Tripura for getting refuge. Thus, a significant demographic invasion took place and the population structure of both Assam and Tripura went for a toss. In fact, Tripura became a Bengali dominated state and Bengali was inducted as the co-state language along with the indigenous Kokborok. In Assam, the Barak Valley in the southern part of the state became a Bengali hub because of the rampaging refugees. Obviously, the indigenous Assamese populace felt threatened by the burgeoning number of Bengalis and thus started the Assam movement in the mid-seventies which saw the cold-blooded murder of many Bengalis throughout the state. Even people who came in before 1971 were branded as foreigners and killed. Thus a group of people who shed the maximum amount of blood for the Freedom Movement of the country became the obvious victims of Independence. Today, being a member of that community, I seriously question Indian Independence and its aftermath. We are living sans identity. Neither the people from West Bengal consider us as their brethren because we are from East Bengal, nor the people of Assam and Tripura take us as their own because they see us as intruders. Just because of some treaties which were signed in New Delhi by the political bigwigs back then, we lost our land, identity and dignity for ever. Even after this, if I celebrate Independence Day, I would be a traitor to my community. For me and lot of us from our community, it is a black day.
4 comments:
Kudos for choosing this day to express yourself.
Beginning with GDP; growth of India in terms of percentage is high, not in absolute terms. Our economic base is much smaller than US & Japan hence in percentage it looks higher. Not undermining the strong economy that we have become in the last just 18 years.
Then in this "So called Independence" (according to the blog): why don't we support Raj Thackeray's ideologies, why shouldn't we have let Punjab become Khalistan, why shouldn't we let all the North-East states (which not just the government but even the omnipotent media has neglected) go independent & similarly for all the other states. Is this the scenario, we literate, now I would use so called modern and thinking generation, come up with. Instead of correcting the wrongs done by our fore-father, we chose to become all the more reason for our future generation to fight. Or do we want to see another Indo-Pak separation at a 1.2 billion humongous scale. We already think in terms of South India and North Indian already. To every South Indian a northy is a Punjabi and to every North Indian a Southy is a Masrasy. Is this really true still today? And if so, do we also want to say a North Easter is a Assamesse and a Wester is a Gujrati. Will this increase the pain or decrease it? I leave it for everyone to decide for themselves.
I belong to the typical Indian image that comes to persons mind when they hear Indian i.e. Punjabi Male (mind it I am talking about the people outside India, who know India just as media portraits). But is it that we never had any problems. We bore the brunt of separation. Ran out from our lands, came here and started a new life and now bear the brunt of being the image of Indian. I am sure few will understand how being an image so a nation becomes the burden. Now, does that give us the right to ask for Khalistan? Kill innocents and terrorize. I will not make any judgments will just leave it at this and for everyone to decide on their own.
Finally I found the use of word Bengali this write up far too many time, but giving stats like maximum number of martyrs from this place undermines everything else that the "Independence Struggle" stands for. Just be sure you are not creating a different kind of inequality, that to based on a stats, even if they are verified to be true. I would like to see a positive use of word Bengali, Rabindranath, Burman, Satyajit, Kishor and much more that you know about the rich culture.
Lets have a positive approach to India, in the face of millions of troubles "WE" faces. Terrorism, Infanticide, Feoticide, Capitalism, power in the hands of few, 58% below poverty line and now "Swine flu". Let undo the wrong, not redo it.
I just got carried away and wrote with the flow. Free to tell me where i over said in my jingoistic emotion.
Dude, I have absolutely no problems as regards expressing your opinions. I like healthy debates as you might be already knowing. But talking about rights, dude, that is absolutely relative, my first question in the above context is who gave the leaders in Delhi the right to determine whether our homeland would become a part of India or Pakistan, the second question, were we ever taken into confidence in any of their decision making process. Secondly talking about nation, I know you are idealistic, believe me at one point in time in my life, even I was, Who created the Indian nation based on which concept. The nation that we are talking about right now was actually a conglomerate of smaller princely states having no commonalities at all. Suddenly, someone out of the blue told me that this is your nation and you have to keep its image all the time. Come on dude, people are not juvenile kids that they will suddenly wake up to the enforced concept of a nation. And we seem to be defining a country in terms of geographical boundaries which is completely a political creation of certain individuals. I mean, if a South Indian don't want to identify himself with a North Indian, you can't force it on him in the name of that so-called nation, neither can you do that to a North Indian. Ya, I agree to the fact that I used the word Bengali too many times, I am not using any justifications, just to tell you it has happened out of a deep sense of insecurity, insecurity of identity, when you are forced out of your own domain and made to stay with a borrowed concept. Dude, finally, we all are free to express our opinions, so you are just free to express whatever you fill about my blog even in the future, I would rather appreciate that. I hate people conforming, you know why we are good friends because we both are non-conformists in our very own ways. So, please comment even in the future.
Bhai ....I am failed to pass any comment...what all I can say...it's really well written..but...one should need a minimum level of sense to pass any comment...which i strictly feel ...i don't have...anyway... desperately waiting for my kinda blogs...hope u will write it...
Ya, Fuzzy bhai, dont worry, they are in the pipeline, but please be in the books and follow my blogs and I dont agree with you when you say that you don't have the sense to comment on the post. I know that you have strong opinions on the subject, thats why I sent the lonk to you. I wanted contradictory opinions from all possible quarters to sharpen my sense on the subject, so please feel free to even abuse me and rebuff me if you think that I am being parochial in certain respects. Dude, and of ya, its time to actually update your blog. Have not heard from you for a fairly long time. Will be waiting for the link of your updated blog.
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