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ASHIS CHAKRABARTI
CALCUTTA, JUNE 30: Next time you think of calling a Bengali a ``Bong,'' better watch out. Or if you happen to be a Bengali and speak to Bengali friends in English, you may end up as ``an object of ridicule.'' But the worst fate may befall Bengali parents who neglect to teach their children Bengali: they might face ``social boycott.''
And no less a person than leading novelist and literary icon, Sunil Gangopadhyay, is leading the ``Save Bengali'' campaign. The Left Front and the Congress have endorsed it, Mamata is silent as of now. But what gives all this a disturbing edge is that it coincides with the recent crackdown on a young Calcutta Marwari man. He set up a web site on the Internet and packed it with hate-Bengali slogans attacking Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, his government and Bengalis in general. He's now in police custody.
That man is a ``psychopath,'' says Gangopadhyay and several Bengalis see a larger conspiracy behind this, a carefully plotted scheme to denigrate them.This cry to save Bengalisand their language has another backdrop. According to a recent survey by the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), the number of Bengali-speaking people has dropped to 57 per cent of the total population in greater Calcutta. Moreover, the city's Marwari population is rapidly swelling the middle-classes in a state which has shown a systematic decline in virtually all social indicators. Some say that this has made several Bengalis feel left out and hence the backlash.
As president of the Bhasa Shahid Smarak Samiti, Gangopadhyay led a delegation earlier this month to state Information and Cultural Affairs Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, demanding, not only changes in the names of Calcutta and West Bengal to their Bengali versions of ``Kolkata'' and ``Paschim Banga,'' but also recognition of the language in education, official work and other spheres of life. Another demand was that Bengali be made compulsory for job-seekers in government offices and private firms. And that there be a dedicatedBengali channel on Doordarshan. ``Let Kolkata remain a cosmopolitan city, but we will not allow people to forget that it is also the capital of Paschim Banga,'' an impassioned Gangopadhyay says. A signature campaign is on here and at Visva-Bharati, the other Bengali cultural centre. Armed with the signature of Bengali celebrities, the samiti plans to meet Basu on Friday.
Filmmaker Mrinal Sen supports Gangopadhyay and his samiti on the concern for the Bengali language but has his worries. ``Can we afford to go the Shiv Sena way? After all, Marwaris, Biharis and Oriyas have been here for more than a century.'' And he holds the Left Front Government responsible for neglecting the use of Bengali in education, official work and in the courts.Gangopadhyay dismisses the argument. ``Was it the Shiv Sena mindset that led to the changes of names for Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati or Thiruvanthapuram?'' he shoots back. His zealous deputy in the movement and secretary of the samiti, Ratan Basu Mazumdar, seeks to allaySen's fears. ``We are for Bengali and not against any other language or community,'' he says. His samiti was recently approached by people to organise street protests not only against the Marwari youth for setting up the anti-Bengali website but also against Marwaris on issues like eve-teasing and forcible occupation of shops. ``But we stopped such protest plans,'' Mazumdar says. However, many fear that it's a thin line and with a little nudge, the campaigners may overstep it. Says a sociologist who did not want to be named: ``Feeling strongly about your mother tongue is natural but if it turns into xenophobia, it's dangerous.''
Magsaysay Award-winning novelist Maheswata Devi has another rejoinder. ``When they talk of saving Bengali from the onslaught of English or HIndi, they are really thinking of a small section of Bengalis living in Calcutta. This is not a problem for the majority of people living in villages. They have very different concerns which the city-oriented intellectuals don't understand orshare.''
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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