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Assamese intellectual pitches for joint celebrations of Bhupen Hazarika
To change northeast India’s ‘perception’ about Bangladesh, a noted Assamese intellectual has mooted a proposal to jointly celebrate birth anniversary of legendary singer Bhupen Hazarika on Sep 8.
Published : 26 March 2016, 03:55 AM
Updated : 26 March 2016, 12:41 PM
Former Assam bureaucrat Jyoti Prasad Saikia, who was in Kolkata on way to Dhaka, told bdnews24.com that he had been for some time toying with the idea of Assam and Bangladesh jointly celebrating the bard’s next birth anniversary.
“People in Assam are very excited about the proposal. I will now discuss the proposal with my friends in Bangladesh,” Saikia said.
Bhupen Hazarika is extremely popular in Bangladesh for his immortal songs.
His song on Bangladesh’s freedom struggle, “Joy joy nabajata Bangladesh (Victory to the newborn Bangladesh)", inspired the freedom fighters.
In an opinion poll some years ago, Hazarika's "Manush manusher jonno (humans are for humanity)" became the second most popular song in Bangladesh after the country's national anthem, "Amar sonar Bangla (my country of gold)".
Bangladesh government conferred Muktijoddha Padak posthumously on him in 2011 for his contribution to Bangladesh’s freedom struggle.
Saikia also got the award in 2013 for his contribution to the Bangladesh’s Liberation War, as a journalist with Times of India in 1971, when he was based in Agartala.
Bhupen Hazarika
Saikia pointed out that 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore was jointly celebrated by India and Bangladesh in 2011 to highlight common heritage and philosophy of two countries.
India and Bangladesh have also jointly celebrated the 90th Anniversary of the publication of the poem, "Bidrohi" by Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Saikia is going to Dhaka to attend a seminar on 'Indo-Bangla Friendship and Cooperation’ on Sunday.
He said such joint celebration and cultural exchange was important for “building bridge” between people of Bangladesh and northeast India.
In Assam Bangladesh is often viewed as a main source of influx of illegal migrants, who are allegedly changing the demographic pattern of the state.
There is, however, no authentic statistics of the so called illegal migrants in the state.
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