Like
any other year, 19e May is being observed all over Barak Valley today as the ‘Bhasha
Shahid Diwas’. Various organizations and individuals are paying tribute to
those brave martyrs who had laid down their lives for the cause of their mother
tongue ‘Bangla’ on this day in the year 1961.
Even
52 years after that fateful day, the martyrs have not been accorded any
official recognition either by the government of Assam or the centre. The
demand for their official recognition and the renaming of the Silchar railway station
as Bhasha Shahid station have been long pending and the dispensations at both
the state and the centre have not been very receptive to the legitimate
sentiments of the people of this region. However, much beyond these demands associated with the sentiments of the people, lies the issue of the current condition of the Bangla language in Barak Valley despite its status as the official language of the valley.
Section
5 of the Assam Official Language Act clearly states that, “Notwithstanding
anything in Section 3 (that accords Assamese as the official language of the
state of Assam), the Bengali language shall be used for administrative and
other official purposes up to and including the district level in the district
of Cachar until the Mohkuma Parishads and Municipal Boards of the district in a
joint meeting by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present
and voting decide in favour of adoption of the official language for use in the
district for the aforesaid purposes.”
Last
year, following the declaration of the results of the TET examinations, some
Assamese speaking teachers were sent to teach students in the Bangla medium schools
of Cachar. Similarly, on some occasions, Assamese reading materials of the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have been sent instead of Bangla. In many Assam
government offices, the signboards are completely written in English while the
official language of the region is given a miss.
The banks
operational in the valley are also equally guilty of flouting the norms. Plenty
of ATM counters in the entire valley have signboards written in English, Hindi
and Assamese. While the scripts of the both the languages are almost similar,
there is a lot of difference in the way various words are spelt.
Faulty
textbooks, misleading signboards of the banks etc are creating a new generation
of Bengalis in Barak Valley who are unsure about the spellings of various
Bangla words. Increasingly, parents are preferring
to teach their children only English and Hindi. In addition to such a scenario,
the flouting of the language act is further leading the Bangla language to doom
in the region.
This
article has not been written to create any rift between the two linguistic communities.
In fact, the only way Assam can move forward is through the fostering of
friendly ties between the Barak and Brahmaputra valleys. However, at the same
time, the government and its agencies have to accord due respect to the
linguistic rights of the people of Barak Valley.
The people
of the valley also have to raise their voice against these injustices. The language
martyrs will get their due respect and glory only if we can elevate Bangla to
its deserved position in Barak Valley.
Can I repost it in my blog, of course, with due credits and links to this page? Please let me know.
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