Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and his legacy and what we have done to it :

Let me begin by apologizing to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for the tremendous insult he has been made to undergo on behalf of all the Bengalis who have failed to protect his statue from being vandalized by some miscreants.

Being a Bengali, I feel burying myself deep into the earth. This is a massive insult to our 'Bangaliyana'. In my worst nightmare, I couldn't think of the incident which already has grabbed the eyeballs of the country drawing sharp reaction from the intellectuals. Meanwhile the blame game has already started with TMC supremo blaming the BJP supporters for this heinous act. On the other hand, BJP president Amit Shah has pinned blame on the TMC supporters for the vandalization.

A motorcycle was burnt at the gates of the Vidyasagar college, stones thrown and most surprisingly the statue of Vidyasagar was vandalised brutally during BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday evening.

Bengal Renaissance played an important role to construct a new social structure. It was initiated by Raja Rammohan Roy but Vidyasagar gave a smooth, final touch to it. He actively campaigned for the women education and fought for the equal rights for the women. He with his own money and resources founded a number of schools, colleges, educational institutions for women to empower them, to free them from the shackles of this patriarchal society. On one occasion, some social activists went to meet him and one among them asked him about his views on how to educate this society. He without giving a second thought replied 'give proper education to women, by means of which you can achieve an educated society'. He fight against the Brahminical aggression. He was noted for his philanthropist activities and was a key figure in Bengal Renaissance. He forced the British to introduce Widow Remarriage Bill. Born to poor parents, his quench for knowledge was immense so much so that he used to study under a street light, the fact almost all the Bengalis are well aware of. He reconstructed the Bengali alphabet and simplified Bengali typography. He fought against all the societal viles including untouchability, child marriage, illiteracy and so on. In short, his contribution to the making of modern Bengal is immense which can't be written down in just one go.

 The loss we have suffered by letting the goons commit the crime is unbearable. Just think of those people who follow him at every step of their lives. Whoever has committed this crime must be brought to law and stringent actions must be taken against them without any sort of concession.


Masidur Rahaman.
15th May, 2019. 

A Man Of Wisdom With An Utmost Simplicity.

"You need not stand up all the time while answering the question.", a gentle, kind Partha Babu smiled. And surprisingly this statement was enough to remove my fear in no time. Being a village boy and a student of Bengali medium school, I was a bit nervous. Frankly speaking quite nervous. I had heard from my seniors that the students from cities are far more advanced than us, the ones who come from villages. I can recollect even today that I entered the class room with a sense of anxiety and fear. A strange class room looked at me maintaining similar strangeness. I have never seen girls wearing T-shirt and jeans before. I felt ( May be I am wrong) handsome boys and pretty girls were grinning at me. I was wearing a chappal. And I believe my loose pant helped be become a laughing stock among them.

Partha Babu entered. I was highly indebted to him for his entry drew an end to my insult. It was my belief that professors are aliens. They don't generally speak to students. And students like me in no way can approach them. Their only duty is to come to college and open the books and teach us nonchalantly. Neither they will talk to us nor will be interested in what we are doing in the class room. But he broke my fallacy into pieces. I fell off the sky.

Partha Babu is a man of respect and great wisdom. His manner of speaking and benign smile are two things which no one can avoid. How the interaction between us started I can not tell you. But it started and got consolidated within a very short span of time. His knowledge in English literature often made us think that he was born for it. We often put before him questions that sounded almost nonsense and meaningless yet he never got disturbed. I can remember that a guy named Sujoy Ghosh from our class asked him a question that invoked laughter among some students. Partha Babu smiled and started giving reply to his query laughing on those people who laughed at Sujoy's query.

I wrote a short piece of article on the release of the film Padmavat when I was in Krishnath College. I asked for his permission to submit it on our department's wall magazine. Before I kept the proposal of submitting the article to him, I revealed that the article was political by nature. He smiled and took the article away from my hand. The next day I saw the article was there on the wall magazine.
I can recollect those striking memories born out of our "scholarly" discussions with Partha Babu in our department room ranging from the History of English Literature to how English has beaten other languages with its capacity to adapt to any major crisis to the similarities of the three Semitic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

My last wish when I left the college was to touch his feet and embrace him. But something else was in store for me which prevented me from fulfilling my last wish. I still miss him a lot. Whenever my respected professors issue discouraging statements directed against me for my naivety, a smiling, decent, gentle, soothing Partha Babu keeps his hands on my head with words charged with energy and vigour.

I really don't know whether Partha Babu would be able to see this article or not, but at the conclusion, let me say one more thing, "The more I say about this wonderful human being, the less is spoken".

Masidur Rahaman.
11th May, 2019. 

State of the minorities in any country regardless of time and place.

It is said that bitter truth hurts. But let it hurt if you are a seeker of truth. Because truth may hurt you but it gives you a sense of completion. So let the truth prevail.

Context : state of the minorities in any country regardless of time and place.

Minorities in any country specially those ruled obeying the laws and rituals of religions lead a very despicable life which is inexplicable. Be it India, be it USA, be it Bangladesh, be it Pakistan the picture is same everywhere. In USA black people are considered to be a perceived threat to the USA itself. Then there is islamophobia prevailing among the white supremacists Americans. Black people are considered to be the second class citizens in USA. A few years back probably 3-4 years ago, a black American woman was set on fire in public with everyone watching the horrible incident from a close distance. No one came to her rescue. The incident sent a shock of wave across the world most probably due to the fact that Barack Obama , a black American was then the president of USA. The picture in India is same. India is known across the globe for many reasons. Among them 'unity in diversity' is the most popular one. It is a land of many religions, rituals, customs, languages and so on. But recently, a sense of patriotism completely based on the hatred towards the minorities and dalits has engulfed the entire nation prompting others to abuse them, lynch them, call them anti nationals. Such is the situation in India. India's ruling party's parent organization RSS wants to implement this throughout the country in a bid to make this nation completely a Hindu rashtra going against the values of Indian constitution. Flogging of the dalits and lynching of the minorities under the suspicion of consumption of beef make it to headlines on a daily basis.

The condition of the minorities who mostly make up as Non Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh is same too. A few days back, two Pakistani teenaged girls were abducted , forcefully converted and then married off to men much older than them. In Bangladesh, Hindus are treated as second class citizens and often are accused of being passive in the Bangladesh war. Their temples, places of worships come under assault every now and then from the radical Muslims. Their women are forcefully dragged from their homes and sexually abused. Reports show the minorities in Bangladesh have dwindled in number significantly.

Now note the mode of governance in all these nations. All of them are ruled by some brain washed people who don't hold any regard for tolerance, peaceful coexistence, unity in diversity. They are all fascists by nature and want to rule their respective nations accordingly.

The entire world as a family is going through a very tough situation and we all should come forward to fix the problems defeating each and every fascist element.

10th May, 2019.