Tag: West Bengal

Culture, Neighbors1 Comment

Pinaki Bhattacharya: West Bengal’s attitude to Bengali Muslim

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Pinaki Bhattacharya:  West Bengal’s attitude to Bengali Muslim

“When our books are in the hands of Bangladeshi readers, they never ask — What is the religion of the writer? They judge it by whether it’s readable, whether the story is charming, or whether it’s pleasant to read. But when our Hindu readers from West Bengal, reading books by Bangladeshi authors, come across words such as amma, fufa, namaaz, they have a strange reaction. And it’s due to this reaction that books by many Bangladeshi writers don’t reach the readers here. I want to state this very clearly: compared to Bangladeshi readers, the readers from West Bengal are a lot more fundamentalist.” — Samaresh Majumdar.

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CULTURE: Rift between two Bengals

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By Pratik Deb for AlalODulal

The national anthem of Bangladesh, penned by Tagore, is not exclusively sung on one side of the fence, neither is its use stringently limited for the national occasions of Bangladesh. Unlike the national anthem of most nations, Bangladesh’s national anthem has an everyday appeal in its core that keeps it alive amid the unremarkable occasions, especially in West Bengal where it does not get limited by its officialdom.
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Neighbors, Politics1 Comment

A response to Vijay Prashad’s Bengal’s Slide into Fascism

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The picture above is from the Ganashakti – the official organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)[CPI(M)]. Before losing power, such news items presented the face of ‘democratic student movement’ in West Bengal. Being in Bengal, one knew what these ‘uncontested wins’ meant and the the sheer violence that was often behind these lack of contestations. Continue reading “A response to Vijay Prashad’s Bengal’s Slide into Fascism”