The day of 19th May has a special significance in the context of Barak Valley. It is the day when eleven great souls had sacrificed their lives for the sake of Bengali language. This day is celebrated as “Bhasha Shahid Divas” in this part of India. It is our moral duty to pay tribute to these great men & women. This page is dedicated to these great people of this land.
During the 60s, the government of Assam wanted to suppress the Bengalis of this state and specifically of Barak Valley. It wanted to make Assamese the official language of the state and discriminated Bengali speaking community. Even text books of these districts namely Cachar, Karimganj & Hailakandi were published in Assamese. This led to popular uprising in Barak Valley and masses took the street in protest. There was violence throughout the valley and more so in Silchar.
It was the ominous day of 19th May 1961 when a group of protesters went to the Railway station of Silchar to demonstrate against the Assam government. The police opened fire on the innocent ‘styagrahis’ in a similar fashion as was done by General Dyer during the ill-famous Jalianwala Bagh Massacre. As many as eleven ‘shahids’ were killed and hundreds more injured during this mishap. The brave martyrs who sacrificed their lives on that day were Shahid Kamla Bhattacharya, Shahid Sachindra Pal, Shahid Kanailal Neogi, Shahid Sukamal Purkayasta, Shahid Hitesh Biswas, Shahid Tarani Debnath, Shahid Chandicharan Sutradhar, Shahid Kumud Das, Shahid Satyendra Debnath, Shahid Sunil Sarkar, Shahid Birendra Sutradhar.
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It is by virtue of their sacrifice that today people of Barak Valley have an identity and can speak freely in their mother tongue. The name of these great people is written in golden letters in the history of Barak Valley and Bengali language.
However are we giving due respect to these great souls. Today most of us don’t even know about ‘Bhasha Shahid Divas’. For most of us 19th May is just another holiday. Often political leaders take this opportunity to give thunderous lectures and a few social organisations and activists go for a procession and pay homage to the martyrs at Silchar Sashanghat. The very next day we forget everything.
Today very few people care about Bengali language. The linguistic discrimination is creeping up again slowly. Already we can see textbooks having Assamese words and advertisement hoardings in Assamese. All of us are to blame for this. We must know the importance of mother tongue. It is high time that we start thinking about this and take actions so that the sacrifice of those great souls doesn’t go wasted.
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