After two years of pandemic restrictions, this year, we celebrated Pohela Boishakh with the usual fervour and zeal. It was pleasing to see the colourful procession of Mongol Shobhajatra, and the musical performance at Ramna Batamul again. People of all ages came out, defying the already scorching heat to take part in the celebrations.
However, what appeared beautiful and charming to us hasn’t essentially incited the same feeling among some others. From a subjective point of view, it is quite normal that everyone will not like everything. What is not normal, however, is the abusive language used on social media by those who try to pretend to be on a crusade against any cultural event like Pohela Boishakh.
In fact, comments made by such crusaders which were covered by different national and foreign news media about the celebration of the Bengali New Year were truly embarrassing and distasteful, to say the least.
For any individual with a genuine passion for different Bengali cultural events, those comments and the entire mindset that works behind them will surely generate anger and disgust. This generally results in slinging mud at each other on online platforms.
But such squabbles have never brought any good outcomes; instead it deteriorates the atmosphere facilitating further division - as if we are not polarized enough already.
I strongly believe it is essential for us to search for the root of this hatred towards Pohela Boishakh. The genealogy of this anti-Pohela Boishakh mentality can be traced back to history. What we are witnessing now are the remnants of that.
When the self-proclaimed Pakistani Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan came into power, he banned the celebration of Pohela Boishakh. Obviously, he had his Bengali collaborators who shared his ideology -- as they still do.
As part of Ayub Khan’s cultural “purification” of the people of the erstwhile East Pakistan whom he perceived as too influenced by the Hindus and not enough “good” Muslims, he also banned songs of Rabindranath Tagore. This is relevant here because the anti-Pohela Boishakh mindset is fiercely anti-Tagore as well. Veteran left-wing political activist Badruddin Umar has analyzed this phenomenon of communal attitude toward cultural activities in detail in his famous work Sanskritik Sampradayikta.
In my conviction, the most outrageous thing Ayub Khan and his cohorts tried to do was to write Bangla in the Arabic alphabet, for the Bangla alphabet descended from Sanskrit, which was not considered perfect for a good Pakistani Muslim. Mohammad Ayub Khan’s perception of the Bengali people and their culture can be found in crystal clear terms in his famous autobiography, Friends not Masters: A Political Autobiography.
Unfortunately, the exact similar arguments borrowed from Ayub Khan and the then Pakistani establishment are still in use against the celebration of Pohela Boishakh by a significant group of our very own Bangladeshis. It is being labelled as a Hindu festival; no good Muslim should have anything to do with it. People have gone as far as to mock Pohela Boishakh as a “puja” on social media.
In a free society, people will and should have different opinions on different subjects -- nothing should be imposed on anyone forcefully. Becoming angry with someone for their untrue notions about Pohela Boishakh and reacting harshly is also not the way to go about it.
Rather, we need to look for those who are shaping such opinions, those who are taking it so far as to label celebrating Pohela Boishakh as “sinful” in different religious gatherings -- which appears to be no less than that of issuing a fatwa.
We need to inform people about our cultural history and explain to them that events like Pohela Boishakh, Nobanno Utshob, Boshonto Utshob, etc have been celebrated hand in hand by all Bengalis regardless of being Hindus, Muslims, or from any other religion for many years.
At the end of the day, the power lies in the hands of the authorities. Our leaders and politicians from all sides need to stop the double game of pretending to be the sole saviours of our culture and history on one hand, and on the other hand, succumbing to absurd, regressive demands for political purposes.
Ratnadeep Toorja is a software programmer by profession and a musician and amateur writer by passion.