The month of February reminds Bangladeshis of the sacrifices of the brave language martyrs of 1952. But not many people know about a similar history in Shilchar Railway station of Assam, India where 11 Bengali brave martyrs also sacrificed their lives for the same reason during a movement demanding Bangla as the State Language of Assam in India on May 19, 1960.
Those silent martyred who sacrificed their lives to establish Bangla as a state language remained obliterated and they are still required to be recognized as the Language Martyred by the State Government of Assam.
Every year during February, International Mother Language Day is observed through various programmes and the martyred of the 21 February are remembered through various functions in due honour. Sadly neither Bangladesh government nor any private organizations in the country has ever felt any urge to make communicate with the family members of those Bangla language martyred or any
Bangla language movement organizations of Assam to remember them with those martyred in Bangladesh who laid their lives for the same cause.
As gathered from various sources, the Bengali Language Movement in Barak Valley, Assam was a protest ground against the decision of the then Government of Assam to make Assamese the only official language of the state even though a significant proportion of the population was Bengali people.
In the Barak Valley, the Sylheti-speaking Bengali population constitutes the majority. The main incident, in which 11 people were killed by State police, took place on 19 May 1961 at Silchar railway station. At least 11 young men including female protesters embraced martyrdom in indiscriminate police gunfire.
The martyred were identified as Kanailal Neogi, Chandicharan Sutradharm, Hitesh Biswas, Satyendranath Deb, Kumud Ranjan Das, Sunil Sarkar, Tarani Debnath, Sachindra Chandra Paul, Birendra Sutradhar, Sukomol Purakaystha, and the only female Sukamal Bhattarcharhee.
The irony of the fate is that till today these martyred have not been accorded the status of martyred either by the State government of Assam or any step has so far been taken by any organisation of Bangladesh to remember them for the supreme sacrifice they made through shedding their fresh blood to establish Bangla as the state language.
As history says, in April 1960, a proposal was submitted to the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, to declare Assamese as the only official language of the state. Tensions ran high in the Brahmaputra Valley, where mob violence broke out soon after the proposal. The violence reached its peak between July and September, during which an estimated 50,000 Bengalis fled the Brahmaputra Valley and moved to West Bengal. Another 90,000 fled to Barak Valley and other regions of the North East.
A one-man enquiry commission was set up under Justice Gopal Mehrotra. According to the report of the commission, 4,019 huts and 58 houses belonging to Bengalis were vandalized and destroyed in 25 villages of Goreswar in Kamrup district, which was the worst affected by violence. Nine Bengalis were killed and more than one hundred were injured.
On 10 October 1960, Bimala Prasad Chaliha, the then Chief Minister of Assam presented a bill in the Legislative Assembly that sought to legalize Assamese as the sole official language of the state.
Ranendra Mohan Das, the legislator from Karimganj (North) assembly constituency and an ethnic Bengali protested against the bill on the ground that it sought to impose the language of a third of the population over the remaining two-thirds. On 24 October, the bill was passed in the Assam legislative assembly thereby making Assamese the only official language of the state.
On 5 February 1961, the Cachar Gana Sangram Parishad was formed to agitate against the imposition of Assamese in the Bengali-speaking Barak Valley. On 14 April, the people
of Silchar, Karimganj and Hailakandi observed a 'Sankalpa Divas' in protest against the injustice of the Assamese government. On 24 April, the Parishad flagged off a fortnight-long 'Padayatra' (Road march) in the Barak Valley, in the regions surrounding Silchar and Karimganj to raise awareness among the masses. The satyagrahis who took part in the padayatra walked over 200 miles and covered several Villages.
The procession ended on 2 May in Silchar. Later on, a similar Padayatra was organized in Hailakandi. After the Padayatra, Rathindranath Sen, the Parishad chief declared that if Bengali was not accorded the status of official language by 13 April 1961, a complete hartal would be observed on 19 May from dawn to dusk. The Parishad also called for due recognition of the languages of other linguistic minorities.
On 12 May, the soldiers of the Assam Rifles, the Madras Regiment and the Central Reserve Police staged a flag march in Silchar. On 18 May, the Assam police arrested three prominent leaders of the movement, namely Nalinikanta Das, Rathindranath Sen and Bidhubhushan Chowdhury, the Editor of the weekly Yugashakti.
Assam police resort to lathi charge on the satyagraha at the Tarapur railway station (now, Silchar railway station ). On 19 May, the dawn to dusk hartal started. Picketing started in the sub-divisional towns of Silchar, Karimganj and Hailakandi from early in the morning.
In Karimganj, the agitators picketed in front of government offices, courts and railway stations. In Silchar, the agitators picketed in the railway station. The last train from Silchar was at around 4 PM, after which the hartal would be effectively dissolved. Not a single ticket was sold for the first train at 5. 40 AM. The morning passed off peacefully without any untoward incidents. However, in the afternoon, the Assam Rifles arrived at the railway station.
At around 2-30 PM, a Bedford truck carrying nine arrested Satyagrahis from Katigorah was passing by the Tarapur railway station (present-day Silchar railway station). Seeing their fellow activists arrested and being taken away, the Satyagrahis assembled at the railway tracks and broke out in loud protests. At that point, the truck driver and the policemen escorting the arrested fled the spot.
Immediately after they fled, an unidentified person set fire to the truck. A firefighting team immediately rushed to the spot to bring the fire under control. Within five minutes, at around 2-35 PM, the paramilitary forces, guarding the railway station, started beating the protesters with rifle butts and batons without any provocation from them.
Then within seven minutes, they fired 17 rounds into the crowd. Twelve persons received bullet wounds and were carried to hospitals. Nine of them died that day. Ullaskar Dutta sent nine bouquets for nine martyrs.
On 20 May, the people of Silchar took out a procession with the bodies of the martyrs in protest of the killings. Two more persons died later. One person, Krishna Kanta Biswas survived for another 24 hours with a bullet wound in the chest.
After the incident, the Assam government had to withdraw the circular and Bengali was ultimately given official status in the three districts of Barak Valley. Section 5 of Assam Act XVIII, 1961, safeguards the use of Bengali in the Cachar district. It says, “Without prejudice to the provisions contained in Section 3, the Bengali language shall be used for administrative and other official purposes up to and including district level.”
Silchar railway station is described as Bhasa Shaheed Station
This massacre is compared with the massacre in Jalianwalabag or the one in Bangladesh on 21 February 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bengali, as one of the two national languages of then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka.
Every year 19 May is celebrated as Bhasha Shaheed Divas to commemorate those 11 martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of protecting the Bengali language, various cultural programmes are conducted, rallies are taken out and busts of those martyrs are decorated with flower garlands.