Strike call on proposed withdrawal of Bangla in Assam district

The Opposition Congress has called for a 12-hour general strike in Assam's Cachar district on Dec 16 to protest against a proposed withdrawal of Bangla as official language from the Bengali-dominated Barak valley.

Dilip Kumar Sharma, Guwahatibdnews24.com
Published : 15 Dec 2016, 09:33 AM
Updated : 15 Dec 2016, 09:33 AM

Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi make up the Barak valley of southern Assam, where local Bengalis have fought and died to establish Bangla as the official language since the 1960s.

The strike call comes two days after Indian Union Minister of State for Railway Rajen Gohain said that Bengali language should be withdrawn from Barak Valley as official language.

The Minister had justified the withdrawal on the ground that there cannot be two official languages.

According to him, Assamese should be the official language in Barak Valley. All three districts in Barak valley have English and Bengali as official language.

Rajen Gohain, besides being a Union Minster is also a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam. He has successfully represented the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency in Assam four times in a row.

Partha Ranjan Chakraborty, Sanjib Ray and Rajesh Deora of Silchar district Congress committee, while informing about the bandh call also appealed all political and non-political organizations to participate and support the bandh. The Bandh will commence 5 am of Friday morning and remain in effect until 5pm in the evening.

Earlier on Wednesday, the district congress burnt an effigy of Union Minister Gohain in front of of Gandhibagh on Silchar Park Road in protest against his comments.

The minister's statement has also been taken seriously by several organizations like All India Democratic Students’ Organization (AIDSO), All Cachar-Karimganj-Hailakandi Students’ Association (ACKHSA) and Nagarik Suraksha Sangram Committee (NSSC).

According to these organisations, the minister's statement is an insult to the entire Bengali community.

According to these organizations, the proposed withdrawal is an affront on the long accepted practice of using Bengali as the official language.

Besides, educational institutions use Bengali as the medium of instructions.

Even after the historic language movement of 1961, where 11 language martyrs of the valley laid down their lives for the noble cause, there have been attempts to interfere with the Official Language Act as well as the medium of instructions.

Bijit Kumar Sinha (NSSC), Gour Chandra Das (AIDSO) and Rupam Nandi Purkayastha (ACKHSA) in a joint statement, condemned Gohain's comments and said that as a responsible Union Minister, he should have gone through the historical background of language movement in Barak Valley and its outcome before making such irresponsible statements.

At the same time, he should have also gone through the legal and constitutional provisions of the language right of any linguistic minority group, they said.

Incidentally, the Congress party, that on Friday has declared a 12-hour bandh in Cachar district, had, when it was in government, on November 30, 2013 issued a circular asking the deputy commissioners of all districts of the state to ensure use of Assamese as official language and to submit a half-yearly report to the government on its implementation.

Politics in Barak valley has always been important for parties. The valley has two Lok Sabha seats – Silchar and Karimganj and in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP could not get either of these seats.

However, in this year's Assam assembly poll, out of the 15 seats in the three districts of Valley, BJP clinched victory in eight seats, the highest ever tally for the party in the region.