Abu Saleh: UoH Bengali Samsad Presents Bhasha 2016

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

UoH Bengali Samsad Presents Bhasha 2016

On the Occasion of International Mother Language Day, UoH Bengali Samsad wants to recall the sacrifices of the martyrs of Ekushey. On 21st February, 1952, Dhaka, four students - Abdus Salam, Rafiq, Barkat and Abdul Jabbar were gunned down by state security personnels for the 'crime' of agitating for recognition of their mother language. This incident triggered off a mass movement for collective self-recognition of the Bengali people and their language. In their struggle the students, workers, peasants and homemakers of Bengal articulated pledges of International solidarity with all oppressed people fighting for self-respect across the globe.

In context of our very own grief, as part of the university community, on the death of our friend Rohith Vemula, this recalling is our humble endeavor to cope with this tragedy. To arrive at a closure that do not blunt the deep anger articulated by Rohith and stand by what Rohith stood for. Wherever students had asserted their identity and demanded social justice, establishments had brutally cracked down with their 303s, prison camps, rubber bullets and, when nothing worked, by institutional discrimination and spreading misinformation – as in Dhaka in 1952 or the shootings in Jackson and Kent State Universities in 1970, in Cairo in 2011, in Tunis, in Prague, in Tienanmen Square, in Bangalore, in Madras, in Ajmir; Trayvon Martin, Allison Krause, William Scrhoeder, Sandra Scheuer, Jeffrey Miller, Senthil Balraj, Madari Venkatesh, Rohith Vemula, Mohit Chauhan, the Unknown, and the next in line. It's our part to uphold what they fight for.

In that regard, if people with native language other than Bengali also want to participate and perform in BHASHA, 2016 in their cultural medium, we would consider this attempt of ours to talk across cultures in solidarity to be worthwhile. 