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The First Page of the First Day of the Golden Jubilee of the Supreme Sacrifice of the Martyrs of the Unish
A
iver
is called Barak. A date frozen in the calendar is 19th May. In 1961
when world woke up to celebrate the birth centenary of its poet-laureate,
Rabindranath Tagore, the two banks of Barak rose to an wake up call
to defend its legitimate right to sing in Tagore’s language, to
dream in Tagore’s language, to live a Bengali life. In the railway
track of the district town, Silchar of the then undivided district
of Cachar of Assam, ten young men and a woman fell down to the bullets
of the state police. In the aftermath of the valiant sacrifices
of the martyrs, Bengali was made the official language of the three
districts of present day Barak valley. The struggle that gave back
Bengali its rightful place was never a struggle of the Bengalis’
alone. First to resign from Assam Legislative Assembly in protest
of firing was Nanda kishore Singha, a Bishnupriya Manipuri. In a
silent protest against the brutal police firing and consequent death
of eleven martyrs, thousands of Khasi men and women were on the
streets of Shillong. The pluralism exuded out of these events was
the essence of the language struggle of 1961. Struggle for a pluralistic
polity and life in a multilingual, multiethnic state like Assam
is the uniqueness of the Bengalis’ language struggle of the state.
Struggle for pluralism against the chauvinistic policies of the
ruling classes took its thread from 1961 and went through the tumultuous
events of 1972, 1986 and 1995. Bachchu Chakraborty in 1972, Jaganmoy
Deb (Jagan) and Dibyendu Das (Jishu) in 1986, in Karimganj and valiant
Sudeshna Sinha, a fighter for the cause of her mother tongue, Bishnupriya
Manipuri in 1995 in Kalkalighat- followed the footsteps of the eleven
martyrs of 1961 and joined the long column of glorious martyrs of
history. History and Geography of this land, for long have been
engaged in a duel which left an indelible imprint on the archaic
memory of the populace. Our literature, our music and our folklore
murmur the never-ending agony, the refrain of eternal tragedy of
this land. The saga of our journey through the lonesome roads of
history remains unheard till date. On the fiftieth anniversary of the supreme
sacrifice of the martyrs, we launch this website to make our presence
felt in the fraternity of web-world to plead our own case, with
a hope to share our tears and laughter, our trials and tribulations,
our triumphs and fall in the annals of history with the likeminded
struggling masses across the globe.
................ Let’s be friends! Geography
(The Fundamental Principle of Community Demographics of Barak Valley - Bhakti Madhab Chattopadhyaya) (a)Khaspur-1 (b)Khaspur-2 (c)Khaspur-3 (d)Khaspur-4 (e)Khaspur-5 (f)Barkhola (h)Map of Pre-Independence Surma-Barak History
Language Struggle
Literature
Culture
Politics
Assam - Amit Kumar Nag (Independence Movement and Cachar - Hurmat Ali Barlaskar) (Bengalies of Barak Valley: crisis of their existence & figures - Sujit Choudhury) | |||||
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