A move delayed since 1974, a time when the government of SS Ray initiated procedures to rename the state of West Bengal. This was followed up in 1999, but it took a historic change of government in 2011 to finally retire a name rendered redundant decades ago by political changes, only to replace it with one suffering from the same flaws.
Since 1947, West Bengal has been west of nothing in particular. Its sister, the East had by then changed her suffix from Bengal to Pakistan. In the process of a bloody Partition orchestrated through stoking the fire of religious identity politics, East and West had ceased to be mere geographical contours sketched on the map by colonial rulers. What emerged from the ghosts of the Partition was a cultural and religious divide between the Ghotis of West Bengal and the Bangals of the East, between Hindus and Muslims. Overnight, it did not matter if you shared a common heritage, a generally common language, a love for fish or Rabindrasangeet. As seen with any other instance of violence in the modern world, one particular identity of an individual or a group took precedence over all others – in this case, the identities being religious and geographic. Continue reading
carvaan 