The Sentinel Reports:
An all-party delegation from Silchar would visit Delhi next month to place its demand before the Union Home Ministry for changing the nomenclature of Silchar railway station as “Bhasha Shahid Station.” This was decided in a meeting held at the Silchar Book Fair recently.
It is to be noted that responding to public demand, the State Government as well as Railway Ministry agreed to change the name of the railway station in respect to the 11 language martyrs who sacrificed their lives on May 19, 1961 at the Silchar Railway Station. But, the Union Ministry later rejected the demand stating that policy guidelines regarding the change of nomenclature of village, city, towns, railway station etc. on grounds of local patriotism or linguistic was not possible.
My Comments:
To honour the Language Martyrs is something that is we all owe to those great souls. And It is also very good thing to get united across party line in order to do something purportedly to honour the martyrs. But questions come as to the manner of honouring them.
It is understood that they wanted to honour them by chaging the name of the Railway Station where they were martyred and by naming after them. But, perhaps, one has to see first whether the railway station in question is still worth the name of a railway station. It is a station which has no connection with rest of world through rail lines that are present day standard lines/tracks in India, I mean, broad gauge lines. Silchar Rail Way Station has not link with other station through a broad gauge line. So, the Station itself is hardly a name of railway station. It would be appropriate in order to honour the martyrs to demand the immediate completion of works on broad gauge line connecting Silchar to Lumding. Because, for lack of proper rail communication people of Barak Valley, for whose sake the martyrs tendered the supreme sacrifice, are suffering from all conceivable hardships ranging from such hike in the prices of essential commodities that can't be found in any other parts of the country, lack of educational facilities, lack of industrialization to frequent accidents in the national high way along the jagged hills of Meghalaya claiming hundreds of lives often.
And we should honour the martyr by fighting to bring to book those who killed them without provocation and get their families rehabilitated. It is necessary to end the regime of impunity and which in turn is inevitable if we want to prevent the repetition of such inhuman atrocities upon those who fight for justice peacefully.
We laso should honour the language and the people who speak it by fighting for their all rights guaranteed under the constitution and international human rights standards.
We can build memorial structures at the very spot where they were shot at.
In fine, what we should do is to first make the Railway Station a true Railway station having links with other stations by up to date rail tracks. We need to renew fight for justice for the martyrs.
See the Sentinel Report:
Delegation to visit Delhi on changing nomenclature issue
SILCHAR, Dec 28: An all-party delegation from Silchar would visit Delhi next month to place its demand before the Union Home Ministry for changing the nomenclature of Silchar railway station as “Bhasha Shahid Station.” This was decided in a meeting held at the Silchar Book Fair recently.
It is to be noted that responding to public demand, the State Government as well as Railway Ministry agreed to change the name of the railway station in respect to the 11 language martyrs who sacrificed their lives on May 19, 1961 at the Silchar Railway Station. But, the Union Ministry later rejected the demand stating that policy guidelines regarding the change of nomenclature of village, city, towns, railway station etc. on grounds of local patriotism or linguistic was not possible.
The Home Ministry’s decision evoked severe criticism from the people in Barak Valley and various organizations staged demonstration and brought out protest rallies against it. Silchar MP Kabindra Purkayastha had already raised the matter in the Lok Sabha while former Union Minister Sontosh Mohan Dev had sought the intervention of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram after being assured by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi that the State Government had no objection in changing the nomenclature of the railway station.
The meeting was convened by district Trinamool Congress president Paritosh Paul Choudhury who played a vital role in the 1961 language movement. District Congress president Karnendu Bhattacharjee, AIUDF leaders Arun Dey, Nabadwip Das, Aamra Bangali leader Sadhan Purkayastha and Dr NI Laskar of NCP also attended the meeting. Though none from the BJP was present in the meeting, the district president extended his support to the decision taken in the meeting. THE SENTINEL
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