First the CPI(M),then Trinomool governments tried to remove the ‘West’ from West Bengal,the name of the state. The intention was clearly to make people forget that there was an East Bengal,and Hindus suffered unspeakable atrocities there.
The Union Home ministry had declined
to do so. Yet the Bengali print media of Kolkata,tongues hanging out for ads and largesse from state govt,keeps on calling the state ‘Bongo’,as Mamata wanted,and not ‘Poshchimbongo’.
Some people draw the parallel of Punjab,say that the prefixes ‘East’ in India and ‘West’ in
Pakistan have both been dropped. This is a specious argument. Because in Punjab the process of partition is COMPLETE,with practically all Hindus and Sikhs having come away to India and all Muslims gone away to Pakistan. That was not so in Bengal. In erstwhile East Bengal,now
Bangladesh,the percentage of Hindus came down from 29% in 1941 to 8% today; while in West Bengal the percent of Muslims has INCREASED from 20% in 1951 to 30% today.
In other words,in Bengal the Hindus were persecuted in the East and moved to the West. Whereas the Muslims in
West Bengal stayed put and multiplied.
So it is necessary to retain the prefix in West Bengal to remind us that in Bengal PARTITION IS INCOMPLETE
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.