Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 23, 2007
Who speaks Urdu in West Bengal?
It is ironical that West Bengal Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should have offered to accord official status to Urdu
as the State's second language on a day that is commemorated on both sides
of the Padma as 'Ekushey'. Mr Bhattacharjee may have forgotten the significance
of February 21 - on that day in 1952 Bengalis of what is now Bangladesh braved
bullets to protest the imposition of Urdu as Pakistan's state language with
the explicit purpose of stamping out their cultural identity - but it remains
indelibly etched in the collective memory of the vast majority of Bengalis.
If in 1952 Urdu was seen by the Bengalis of East Pakistan as the language
of razakars and muhajirs (scornfully referred to as 'Bihari Muslims') and
an instrument of cultural domination by the practitioners of political Islam,
more than half-a-century later a similar view would be shared by most Bengalis
of West Bengal, including those who wear their Marxism on their sleeves. Veteran
Marxist and former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, not known for pandering to majoritarian
and cultural sensitivities, was cautious when dealing with the demand voiced
in 1981 by migrant factory workers that Urdu be declared West Bengal's second
language: Rather than accord Urdu official status, he merely recommended its
use in areas dominated by non-Bengali Muslims. Mr Bhattacharjee now proposes
to make that casual arrangement official policy of the Left Front Government,
unmindful of the implications of conceding the absurd demand of those who
refuse to recognise the core cultural identity of West Bengal and Bengalis,
irrespective of whether they are Hindus, Muslims or Christians. For, Bengali
is not spoken by Hindus alone.
It is obvious that Mr Bhattacharjee's promise
to accord official status to Urdu is prompted by political expediency. With
the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind mobilising Muslim support against his industrial policy
which involves acquisition of farmland, both the Chief Minister and his comrades
are worried about a possible erosion of their minority vote which is crucial
to win elections in West Bengal where Muslims constitute 25 per cent of the
population. Hence, Mr Bhattacharjee is now bending over backwards to accommodate
illegitimate demands to pander to Muslims in a manner that is no different
from the Congress's policy of minority appeasement. That such pandering will
not fetch any palpable benefits for West Bengal's Muslims, whose development
indices are among the lowest in the country, is of little consequence to either
him or his fellow Marxists. The CPI(M), it would seem, has rid itself of the
last vestige of ethics and bid farewell to ideological convictions. Why else
would it endorse the decision to make Urdu West Bengal's second language when
not even one per cent of the State's people speak, read or write in this language?
Are the Marxists now reduced to willingly crawl when asked to bend by peddlers
of theocracy for whom Urdu is the defining idiom of Islam in West Bengal as
it was for East Pakistan's razakars and their patrons in Rawalpindi? It is
a pity and a shame that Mr Bhattacharjee, who pretends to be a Bengali intellectual,
should indulge in such crass politics for a fistful of votes.