Kajal Chatterjee
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction -- "Yes Sir"!
Prayagraj -- "Yes Sir"!
Bangla -- "No Sir"!
Hardly surprising from such an outfit or power group which shamelessly tarnish Bengal as "Kangal" and "land of terrorists traffickers looters smugglers"! Their supreme indifference towards Bengal gets proved by the fact of nominating only 2 MPs(that too as mere Deputy Ministers) in Union Council of Ministry despite reaping a rich electoral harvest from the state garnering 18 seats! How can sentiments and cultural right of Bengalis be ensured by that outfit which hobnobs with the Gorkha outfits in the sole mission of fragmenting Bengal!
But when other states(specially the BJP-affiliated ones) propose new names to remove Anglicised names of various cities towns villages or do away with historic traditional names with even an iota of Islamic touch(Allahabad or Mughal Sarai), the saffron regime promptly awards green signal to the proposal! Also it is just a matter of time Ahmedabad, bearing rich legacy of Sultan Ahmed Shah since 1411 AD, becomes a ridiculous "Karnavati"!
So one does not require to be a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the main or only reason for all the opposition to "Bangla" is just because it has been proposed by Bengal! Hindus and rest of the Indian states hold absolute right to cater to their own linguistic traditions and religious muscle flexing, but promotion of anything remotely connected to linguistic cultural tradition of Bengalis in their own homeland is strict "No No"! However had the state Government proposed only "Bangal" as the new name instead of "Bangla", there lies no doubt that the "nationalist" folks championing "Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan" would have promptly endorsed it given it's background of zealous attempt of Hindi-ising Bengal through rabid divisive communal cry of "Jai Shri Ram"!
And the silly excuse of "confusion" between 'Bangla' and Bangladesh would not do! If two Punjabs can coexist side by side across two nations, if Nigeria and Niger, Sudan and South Sudan, North and South Korea can exist with heads held high without any confusion of anybody; then by which "logic" can names of 'Bangla' and Bangladesh get confused!
Lastly no shame is enough for the leaders of the BJP unit in Bengal who are not protesting against Centre's snub to "Bangla" and thereby the sentiments culture and language of Bengalis.
When all political parties of each and every state in rest of India discard all ideological fights and unite together for the greater and common cause of the state concerned, BJP leaders of Bengal accord greater importance to political affiliation than sanctity of their mother state which is indeed very very unfortunate to say the least.
The writer is based in Kolkata and can be reached at
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