O Captain, O my Captain

ওয়াল্ট হুইটম্যান এর কবিতা

হে ক্যাপ্টেন,আমার ক্যাপ্টেন

হে ক্যাপ্টেন,আমার ক্যাপ্টেন,
সেই ভয়াবহ যাত্রার আজ শেষ চরণ -
ওই জাহাজ যে সব ঝঞ্ঝা জয় করেছে
লিপ্সার ধন আজ হাতে এসেছে,
তট সন্নিকটে, কত ঘন্টা নিনাদ
অদূরেই শোনা যায়, শোনা যায়
উল্লাসের জনকন্ঠ, দুঃসাহসী জাহাজ ওই আসে!

দ্রৃঢ়তম জাহাজ ওরে!
বজ্রদেহী জাহাজ উড়ে যায় -
তবে হ্রৃদয় আমার, তিক্ত ক্ষিপ্ত হ্রৃদয় -
রক্তে স্নাত হ্রৃদয় আমার,
কোথায় আমার ক্যাপ্টেন!
ডেকের বুকে পতিত আমার হ্রৃদয়,
আমাদের ক্যাপ্টেন, নায়ক সবাকার,
শবাকার আমার নেতা - শিথিল, নিরব, নিশ্চুপ -

LANGUAGE MARTYRS’ DAY - THE INFAMOUS INCIDENT OF 19TH MAY, 1961, SILCHAR - A BRIEF RECONNOITRE OF ITS CONTEXTS



CONTEXTS AND CONDITIONS


The contexts and immediate history of the Language Movement in Assam go a long way back to the beginning of the sixties decade of the last century when at the session of the State Legislative Assembly held on 3rd March, 1960, the then Chief Minister of Assam, Sri Bimala Prasad Chaliha discoursed on the issue of Assamese being declared the official language for the state of Assam. There were of course other related contexts which date back to even as early as 1947, during the time when the first Legislative Assembly was convened in Assam. The present essay, however, studies an introduction to the incident of the infamous date, 19th May 1961, celebrated thenceforth by popular acclaim as Bhasha Shaheed Divas (Language Martyrs Day), not only in Barak Valley which had been the land of its origin but also in Bengali cultural spaces across the country and the world. Reportedly, in spite of his pro-Assamese hegemony stance, Chaliha did not directly present his argument in favour of the Assamese language. He stressed that only when the indigenous linguistic minorities of Assam would agree unanimously regarding the declaration of Assamese as the official state language could the issue be taken up in earnest and brought into effect. Chaliha stated that the issue of a state language was not to be decided on the basis of linguistic minority but on the firm foundation of acceptability. But the chief minister’s statement had quite the opposite and as history shows, a far reaching effect on the contemporary socio-political scenario. Overzealous activists who besought the predominance of the Assamese culture over all other existing cultural and linguistic groups within the territorial boundaries of Assam took up the matter and within a few days, the entire region was rife with propaganda for the institution of Assamese as the official state language. Non-historically, however, one can comment that Chaliha’s seemingly democratically laden statement had almost been a beckoning for such a movement to follow. But then, such conclusions are not the end of the present attempt.

On 16th April 1960, following the movement that had surged up in the Brahmaputra valley, a call for a counter movement was launched in Silchar by the local populace to protest against this infringement of constitutional and human rights. It took the form of a public assembly that was attended by scores of local people and almost the entire intelligentsia and political community of the Barak valley. Other similar activities followed and throughout the rest of that year, several public and socio-cultural organizations launched their own efforts to this effect. In the month of July that year, following a police attack on a students’ demonstration in Guwahati (3rd July 1960) in which a student named Ranjit Barpujari was shot dead, the entire Brahmaputra Valley region erupted in flames of communal violence. Thus began the infamous Bongal Kheda Andolan(“Banish the Bongal” movement – Bongal being the name for Bengalis in Assamese, often used in a derogatory sense) which resulted in the mass displacement of thousands of Bengalis across the state. Arson and public murders marked the so called ‘patriotic’ movement. Non-Assamese, mostly Bengali, students in the University of Gauhati, Dibrugarh Medical College and Assam Medical College were forced to flee with barely their lives. Such was the intensity of the zealots that they spared not a single head which had not been shaded by the gamosa (a symbol of Assamese identity, a small towel like piece of cloth akin to the Bengali gamchha) and which claimed not the Assamese language as its mother tongue. Throughout the next few months the unrest continued to fester and spread. Meanwhile the counter movement in protest against the Bongal Kheda Andolan and the predominance of the Assamese language as the state language continued unabated in areas like Shillong, Karimganj and Silchar. These were non-violent protests which obviously could not stem the tide of the violence directed against the non- Assamese populace of the state. In October that year, following a visit by a committee of parliamentarians under the leadership of Sri Ajit Prasad Jain to Assam, the central government at Delhi delegated Sri Govind Ballabh Panth to visit Assam and work out a solution to the communal unrest that had by then engulfed almost the entire state. Sri Panth participated in a series of meetings with representatives of the state government and leaders of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee as well as with those from other agencies like the Silchar Bar Association, Cachar District Congress Parishad and relief committees formed for the succour of victims of communal violence from the Brahmaputra Valley. But all that was in vain since all conciliatory efforts were shunned by the state government. In spite of all such aims towards a placation of the violence and the unrest, on 10th October that year, Sri Bimala Prasad Chaliha proposed the plan for what became the Language Bill later. In spite of efforts on all fronts, the influence of the Language Bill favouring the Assamese language exerted itself on all levels. What followed as a result was a mass protest against the biased attitude of the state government. People from all walks of life participated in vehement protest against the government’s dictum.


19TH MAY, 1961 – BHASHA SHAHEED DIVAS – THAT RED DAY

On 14th April 1961, the people of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj observed Samkalpa Divas (Resolution Day) in protest against the injustice meted out by the state government against non-Assamese, particularly the Bengali speaking community, in Assam. A procession on foot that would span a major region around Silchar and Karimganj was organised and flagged off on 24th April. The satyagrahis who participated in the procession walked for miles during the next few days, crossing several villages and chalets till the final day on 2nd May. The procession lasted for nearly two hundred miles and was welcomed back at Silchar by several public leaders and hundreds of common men and women. A similar procession was also organised at Hailakandi later on. On 19th May, a call for a bandh was announced by the Cachar Zila Gana Sangram Parishad. What had begun the previous year as verbal or peaceful protests was now on the way to assume the status of a full fledged revolutionary movement. Picketers and volunteers on behalf of the Parishad sallied forth in the early morning of 19th May to ensure that the bandh was successful. Though the administration made every effort to curb the movement and to thwart the bandh yet the effort was a huge success. The police made mass arrests and tried to quell the revolutionaries. In Tarapur Railway Station, a crowd of satyagrahis had assembled on the railway tracks and were facing the repeated lathi charges of the police without giving up their place on the tracks. At around 2:30 pm, a Bedford truck bearing nine arrested satyagrahis from Kaatigorah was seen mending its way across the crowd in front of the railway station. The satyagrahis who till then had maintained their peaceful composure were instigated on seeing the administration’s treatment of their fellow activists and they broke out in loud protest. On seeing the situation take a turn for worse the policemen escorting the vehicle as well as the truck driver disappeared from the scene. Seizing the opportunity, someone (it is not known clearly who) set fire to the truck. A fire rescue team from the nearby relief quarters (housed in the premises of Sri Dhirendra Mohan Dev’s residence) rushed to the place and tried to bring the flames under control.


In a matter of a few minutes, the entire area around Tarapur was transformed into a veritable battlefield. Military and paramilitary forces arrived on the scene and began serial lathi charges against the gathered satyagrahis. Many of them tried to escape by fleeing for the nearby railway station. In the meanwhile, the police and other forces also assaulted the satyagrahis who had assembled on the railway tracks. Suddenly, without any prior warning, the armed forces opened fire on the unsuspecting and terrified satyagrahis. It was exactly 2:35 pm then. One after another, eleven people succumbed to their bullet injuries and became martyrs for the cause of their mother tongue. It might be noted here that the time elapsed between the commotion to break out in front of the railway station and the armed forces to arrive and open fire on the satyagrahis was astonishingly minuscule – only five minutes. The precision with which the entire operation was carried out by the armed forces makes one wonder at the apparent mechanism of it. The eleven people who died were –


1. Kanailal Niyogi 2. Chandicharan Sutradhar 3. Hitesh Biswas 4. Satyendra Deb 5. Kumud Das 6. Sunil Dey Sarkar 7. Tarani Deb Nath 8. Sachindra Paul 9. Birendra Sutradhar 10. Sukomal Purakayastha 11. Kamala Bhattacharjya


There were several others who fell under the assault of bayonets and lathis and were rushed for immediate treatment at the Silchar Civil Hospital. Many of their names and their details are no longer available. Though they did not die that terrible afternoon yet many of them were disfigured or maimed in that ruthless attack. The afternoon of that 19th May did not end with the terrible bloodbath. Within minutes of the shooting at the railway station, Hemanta Majumder (then a Subdivisional Officer at Silchar) declared curfew in the town. Accompanying him was Revati Paul (then Town Sub-Inspector). The dead and the wounded satyagrahis were rushed to the Red Cross Hospital and to the Silchar Civil Hospital by the people present there then while the news of the terrible act spread throughout the town. Local leaders like Sri Mohitosh Purakayastha and Smt. Jyotsna Chando made their way to the scene of violence with the Municipal ambulance. Six of the dead satyagrahis were dispatched to the Civil Hospital in that ambulance while many of the other wounded were rendered first aid at the residence of Sri Satindra Mohan Dev by a few doctors. The hospitals had started overflowing with the wounded or dead satyagrahis and the hospital compounds and corridors with thousands of indignant people, shocked beyond belief at the senseless violence perpetrated by the administration. All restraints had been abandoned – even the declaration of the curfew had had no effect on the inflamed spirit of the masses who flooded the streets to watch and to render their salutations to the great martyrs of the day who by their selfless sacrifice had ascended the portals of paradise and the mere memory of whose names had become hallowed. By that evening nine dead bodies from the firing at the railway station had been assigned to the custody of the hospital mortuary. The next day saw thousands of mourning people descend onto the streets to accompany the dead bodies of the martyred to their final resting place at the local crematorium. The air resounded with a drone of thousands of voices announcing their protest against the heinous and terrible act of dishonour that the administration had carried out the previous day. The nine dead martyrs received their last rites at the hands of a race which would forever be indebted to them for their sacrifice. These nine were Kanailal Niyogi, Chandicharan Sutradhar, Hitesh Biswas, Kumud Das, Sunil Dey Sarkar, Tarani Deb Nath, Sachindra Paul, Sukomal Purakayastha and Kamala Bhattacharjya. On 21st May, the day next, two more bodies, those of Birendra Sutradhar and Satyendra Deb, were rescued from the pond at the railway station and on the next day, they were carried to the crematorium in a befitting manner with hundreds of people following them.


Those few days of the language movement passed in a flurry of incidents but the impact of those few days has altered forever the lives of the people of this valley. Even today, with every passing year, the people of this valley await the achievement of the ambition that had been marked out by the satyagrahis so many years ago in 1961 - that of the recognition of Bengali as the official language of Cachar and other Bengali dominated areas of Assam. And very year brings them closer to the great Eleven, as every child, man and woman of this valley knows the martyrs; in feeling and in passion, in their love of the mother tongue.